Clockwork Tsubasa
by Tonight's The Night
Summary: Three hundred years have passed since the human race abandoned their dying planet. Ever since that day, Syaoran, a hyper-intelligent automaton, has carried out his prime directive: to restore Earth to its former health. But when he makes contact with the first human he's encountered in centuries, their meeting raises questions about the real reason Syaoran was left behind.
1. Harsh Revelations

_Author's Notes:_

_Hello, everyone! These past two years, I've done a "gift fic" of sorts during the holiday season, where I've opened myself up to requests by reviewers. It's turned out to be a fun challenge, as well as a good way to open up to the TRC community. As you may have guessed, this fic is a direct result of that tradition. I wrote this story based on a prompt by Cinnamon-Romanji. The idea captured me right way (though I did end up changing a couple details to make it fit with the story that developed in my mind). Anyway, I'll probably be doing one or two more of these gift fics over the next few months, depending on whether I can develop any interesting plots based on the other requests. Guidelines for further requests can be found in chapter 142 of _Shatterheart, _if anyone out there is interested in submitting a request (if you're sending a request, please do so by submitting a review with that request for that particular chapter, just for the sake of organization). Thanks to everyone who submitted story ideas—I wish I could write them all, but I only have time for a couple fics, especially since I'm still in the process of finishing several fics that I've already started. I very much look forward to seeing what all of you think!_

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><p>Chapter One<p>

"Begin activation process," Syaoran said, touching a stylus to the screen and sending a stream of data from his mind to the computer. It processed the complex burst of information in just under a tenth of a second, according to Syaoran's own processors, and if he'd had more practice mimicking human emotions, he might have sighed at the sluggish response.

The computer responded with a neutral voice. "Activating model number 226-B-18, Theta group; designation: agricultural restoration crew."

Syaoran wheeled his desk chair over to the off-white cabinet on the opposite wall, inputting the code with fingers that could type over ten-thousand words per minute, if he devoted all his processing power to forming coherent sentences without damaging his keyboard with the force of his typing. Of course, only the most advanced computers could process that much information, considering how many other tasks occupied them at any given time. His own brain was an exception—a developing processor that grew more intelligent with experience, a processor that rebuilt itself through experience the same way human brains restructured themselves in order to learn complex tasks like walking and speaking. Speech and mobility had been wired into his mind since his activation three centuries ago, before the last human colony had departed for the stars in order to escape their dying planet. Syaoran had been left here with the directive to restore the land, which, incidentally, meant that he'd been left in charge of a waste management center, building automatons to cleanse the poison from the land, air, and water.

The humans had been scheduled to come back fifty years ago. They'd never returned.

Still, his prime directive was to restore the world to its former health, and like all good Clockwork Automatons, he would perform his programmed function until his circuits degraded to such a degree that he could no longer obey that command.

All his musings took place within the quarter of a second it took for the doors of the medicine cabinet to slide open. Syaoran reached inside, grabbing one of the dermal patches and extricating it from its paper sheath. It was an emotion-patch, fit for use by both humans and emotionally-capable automatons. His last patch had expired four days ago—one of his precious Joy patches, and consequently, one of the few things that made him feel truly _alive_. The memory sent an echo of that emotion through his body, and with it, he felt a deep longing—almost an ache—for a more authentic version of Joy. He had only three patches left of the original eight-hundred. Finding a way to replace that emotion would be . . . difficult.

He discarded the expired Joy patch in the waste bin and selected a Motivation patch from the cabinet. He had more of those, since he only used them when his work became unbearably tedious. But he'd been building waste management drones to replace the last batch for close to two weeks now—each only lasted three months before deactivating, like all standard automatons. That Syaoran had outlived them all by many years was a function of his model type, not any special modification of his own. He'd been built to last.

"Unauthorized visitor at entrance twelve," the computer announced.

Syaoran took nearly a quarter of a second to process that. _Unauthorized visitor? _

Something—an echo of some forgotten emotion—pulsed through his heart. "Activate camera twelve," he said, returning to the command screen. An image of a man with spiky black hair and red eyes appeared on the screen, pacing in front of the doors. Syaoran didn't recognize him, which meant one of two things: Either he was another Clockwork Automaton, abandoned in the wasteland that the planet had become, or . . . or he was human.

"Open door twelve," Syaoran said, jabbing his stylus against the screen and transmitting the security code. On-screen, the man stopped pacing, staring at the door with a look of shock. Or, at least, Syaoran interpreted it as shock, according to the few memories he had of the human race before the Departure. As soon as the doors opened wide enough to admit the man's large frame, however, he entered the building.

"Anyone in here?" he called. Syaoran watched him for a moment, paging through hundreds of old files in his memory banks before deciding to greet the visitor personally, rather than watch him wander the halls. It was possible he'd come here on a scouting mission, to see if the planet was indeed habitable again. Syaoran felt a twinge of . . . something. Excitement? Wonder? Dread? It had been so long since he'd experienced any authentic emotion, and he'd never had an emotion-patch specific to any of those feelings, although Joy had some of the same chemical compounds as Excitement, which he hadn't been provided with.

It didn't take long for him to intercept the man. When he did, his visitor stepped back, reaching into his pocket to retrieve an item Syaoran's internal dictionary labeled as a plasma gun. "Human or robot?"

"Robot," he replied, wincing a little at the archaic term. In the days before the Departure, _robot _had become a derogatory term, rather than a technical one. For what reason, he didn't know, but perhaps human language had once again adopted the word as something neutral. "Are you a human?"

The man's eyes narrowed, though Syaoran's scans had already confirmed that he was, indeed, human. And even after centuries alone, his knowledge of human behavior and language patterns would have been sufficient to deduce which category this man belonged to. But his courtesy programs had prompted him to verbally confirm the man's species.

"Human," the man spat, his gun still pointed at Syaoran's chest. "And I can fry your circuits with this, so don't even think about attacking."

"Attacking is not part of my prime directive. I am the manager for this waste management plant. I ensure that the mass cleansing effort continues uninterrupted until the human race returns."

The man let out a sound halfway between a bark and a laugh. Syaoran cocked his head to the side to indicate confusion, but instead of acknowledging the gesture, the man muttered under his breath. "Waste management, huh?"

"That is correct."

"Well, I've got a new directive for you."

Syaoran leaned forward, and a rush of joy—real joy, not the synthetic compound that caused it—surged through his emotional network. "A new directive?"

"Yeah. Shut it all down."

The joy died in his circuits. He rocked back on his heels. "Shut it down?"

With a sneer, the man nodded. "Yeah, shut the whole thing down. Start with the automatons you've been sending out, then all the computers in this building, and then you can damn well shut yourself off, too."

He stood in place for a moment, certain he'd misunderstood. Humanity had tasked him with revitalizing the planet. That work was not nearly finished. In fact, only the land and water in the fifty miles surrounding the waste management center had been purged of pollutants. The air, free-flowing as it was, still contained dangerous amounts of toxins, and took up the bulk of the automatons' efforts. Though it was considerably cleaner than it had been, it had not yet been declared fit for humans, though it was apparently survivable, given his unexpected visitor's lack of extra breathing apparatuses. _I haven't completed my objective__, _he thought, staring at the human in front of him. _Why have I been ordered to shut the project down? _

Annoyance flared in the man's eyes. "Well, get on with it! Shut everything down."

"I . . ." _I must obey orders, _he thought. But his orders conflicted with one another. He'd been commanded to carry out his mission, yet he'd now received a counter-command which ordered him to end the program. None of his commands had ever conflicted to such an extent. And this new order unnerved him. To be shut down, never to be rebooted again . . . Or worse, to have his memory scrubbed clean so he could be reprogrammed.

_Machines must not become attached to life, _he told himself. His commanders had taught him that from the very beginning. Artificial life was insignificant compared to human desires. Above all, he was to obey any command given by a human. And yet . . . He didn't _want _to die.

"Are you even listening?" the man demanded. "Shut it down, I said!"

"Why?"

The question wiped the anger from the man's face, but moments later, it came back, more forcefully than before. "_Why?_"

"Your commands conflict with my primary directive. My programming indicates that I should consider the reason for this change before fulfilling that command."

The man's eyebrows pulled together, mouth twisting into a snarl. Syaoran's survival mechanisms had him shying away. "You're asking _why_?" The man's voice was soft, yet forceful.

"I must evaluate the reason for my new orders."

"The _reason _you need to be shut down is because you and your ilk have wrecked what little was left of this godforsaken planet, and I'm sick and tired of fighting off hostile robots."

_Hostile? _His dictionary defined the word instantly, and he understood the sentence, but it still didn't make sense to him. "May I ask which events have led you to believe that we are hostile?"

The man's arm whipped out, knuckles catching Syaoran's jaw. Pain registered in his sensory banks, spreading from the point of impact to his neck as the force of the blow threw him to the floor. _Warning, _a part of his brain alerted him. _Repeated exposure to forceful impacts can severely damage internal structures. __T__o prolong lifespan, __avoid situations where such damage may occur._

A stray thought about retaliating flashed through his mind, rejected almost instantly. Robots did not fight humans. That rule mattered above all else, even above fulfilling one's own duties. So instead he laid on the ground, curled up slightly to protect himself as the man kicked at his abdomen. Something nagged at the edge of his memories, but he lacked the intuition and insight so common to humankind, and even with his processors humming at maximum output, he could not identify a reason for his . . . anxiety? Uncertainty?

Even as he puzzled over the unidentified emotion, his processor gave him another alternative to lying curled up on the floor. "Please don't hurt me." He spoke softly, making his voice rise in pitch, mimicking the tone of fear. The man paused, leg pulled back, poised to kick. Slowly, he relaxed his leg, standing on both feet.

"What?"

"Please don't hurt me. My sensory system remains in tact. It is painful to be injured."

His statements seemed to confuse the man, and he studied his word choice once again. As with all programs, there had been some bugs in his speaking software. He'd thought everything had been patched up, but it had been centuries since he'd seen a human, and language was fluid. Perhaps the man considered his way of speaking archaic or difficult to understand.

"You feel pain?" the man finally asked.

His processor interpreted the question as a request for explanation. "Sensory software has been a part of automaton programming since the beginning of our development. In emotionally-capable models, it is connected to our empathy software, which moderates our actions and allows us to view situations from perspectives other than our own. To understand the pain of others, one must be capable of experiencing pain."

"Empathy software? You have _empathy software_?"

"It is standard in Clockwork models."

A long silence stretched between them. Syaoran concluded that the man had an outdated processor, to take so long to comprehend basic information. Then, with a sigh, the human spoke. "Ah, shit. You have no idea, do you?"

The odd statement had him looking up at the man, head cocked to the side. "I do not understand what you mean."

"You've got to have security cameras, right?"

"That is correct."

"Take me to the monitors."

_This _order, he could follow, and he did so eagerly, rising to his feet. Pain slithered across his face where he'd been struck, but it was fading quickly, being processed in background programs now that he'd brought something else to the forefront of his mind. Gesturing for the human to follow, he walked down the peripheral corridors, heading to the center of the facility, where the security monitors were located. He could access the footage at any time himself, but the monitors had been implemented during the time before the departure so that they could be viewed by humans. Syaoran didn't really understand why humans needed an extra device to view security footage when it could be streamed directly into their memory banks, but it was not his place to question humans; the most inferior human was still superior to him.

"This is the security center for the waste management plant," he said, inputting the code to open the door. "To what time do you wish to rewind the footage?"

"Two hours ago, as far out as the security footage goes."

Syaoran sent the information to the computer, and the monitors glowed to life. The man pushed past him, looming over the screens without ever completely taking his attention away from Syaoran. A line of tension had formed along his shoulders, and after a few minutes, he made a sound of annoyance. "Fast forward ten minutes."

Syaoran did, and for the first time, they saw movement on the screens as a man with sandy hair tied back in a ponytail walked into the view of the camera. _Another human, _Syaoran thought, amazed. Encountering one human had been exciting enough, but _two_?

Within seconds, one of the waste-management automatons Syaoran had built appeared from the other side of the screen. The sandy-haired man jumped back, grabbing a gun from the holster at his hip and aiming it at the automaton. He fired once, the bullet tearing through the chest of the humanoid machine. Syaoran flinched, wondering if this was why so few of his charges had reported in recently.

Then the automaton raised her arm, hand unhinging at the wrist to reveal a metal tube. And that was when she shot a plasma bullet into the man's heart.


	2. Painful Decisions

Chapter Two

The plasma bullet exploded as it struck the man's chest, producing a fireball that filled half the screen. Syaoran reeled back, horror rushing through his circuits. "Impossible. All automatons are programmed to value human life above all else. This is _not possible_."

"It _is _possible," said the spiky-haired man, rising from his seat. "That guy with the ponytail? His name was Shougo. He's dead now, because of the automatons _you've _been building."

_No, _Syaoran thought. _That can't be true. _"The automatons I have created function only as waste management drones," he said, but something in his emotional systems contradicted the statement. Something a human might have called "doubt."

A trace of that doubt must have come through in his voice, because the human merely crossed his arms and snorted. "Right. Waste management."

"That was my purpose. To build waste management drones and to maintain this facility so that I could construct more automatons. This is a malfunction."

"Is it?" the man sneered. "Because having a 'waste management' automaton with a gun for an arm is one hell of a strange malfunction."

"This . . ." He trailed off, his brain processing the new information. One of his automatons had killed a human—an affront to everything he had been programmed to believe. He would be justified in shutting off that automaton, and he intended to. But the gun built into its arm presented another problem, one that it took his processor the entirety of two-point-four seconds to work through. Guns were weapons. Killing was their only function. Automatons did not need to hunt to survive, nor did they need to defend themselves from harm, as they were not truly alive.

So why had his programming led him to affix a gun to one of his creations? Why had no part of his mind questioned the addition? Was it because it had always been this way? He reviewed his explicit memory and noted that he had used the same parts to build this automaton that he had used in every other automaton he'd created since the Departure. Which meant he had been specifically programmed to overlook the oddity. _Why? Why did I never question this before?_

Slowly, he walked over to the control panel, shutting off the monitors to preserve power. The spiky-haired man stiffened when he drew near, then straightened his back, stepping out of Syaoran's path. "Well?"

"I will shut down the facility," Syaoran said. An unfamiliar emotion pulsed through him, sapping his will to perform his usual functions. He was not programmed, specifically, to drag his feet when he walked, and he did not do so now, but he couldn't help but think he ought to.

The spiky-haired man followed him. "Wait a second. That's _it_? You're really going to do it?"

"Of course. We must never cause harm to a human, lest we betray everything we are programmed to believe." His voice sounded flat, devoid of all feeling. It sounded less human than it ever had. "To do so is to put our own desires above our masters. That is unacceptable. Therefore, I will shut down this facility and all the active automatons." He turned away from the human and began walking back to the control room, programming his course into his autopilot feature and reducing the amount of processing power devoted to conscious thought. The resulting numbness of mind made it easier to follow his programmed course to the control room, where all surviving automatons constructed in this facility, including himself, could be shut down.

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><p>Kurogane followed the robot through the halls, not quite believing his own ears. <em>This has to be a trick, <em>he thought, fingertips brushing against the plasma gun at his hip. It was a Ginryuu .007, one of the highest caliber plasma guns available to the public; it had been top of the line technology in the days leading up to the Departure. That had been three centuries ago, and he'd been in cryo-sleep here on Earth in the interim, but it was still a damned good gun, and if he had to shoot his way out of here, he could.

The robot shuffled through the halls, every step exactly the same length, its body making precise, ninety-degree turns when necessary. Kurogane followed, always leaving a couple meters between them. No sense getting close to it when he could shoot it just as easily from a distance.

The thing gave no indication that it was aware of his caution, or his willingness to use Ginryuu as needed. It gave no indication that it wanted to live at all, anymore, though Kurogane was still a bit unsettled over the "sensory system" it had mentioned. The thing had outright admitted it could feel pain, and while that should have eased the tension in Kurogane's gut, it only made him more wary of deception. After all, what kind of weapon-building robot would be programmed to feel pain—or have "empathy software," as this one claimed to? _Some empathy, _he thought bitterly, thinking of what he'd seen on the monitors. _Making war machines and pretending to have emotions. What bullshit. _

The robot—he had to struggle not to think of it as a boy, for it could easily pass as one except for its stilted way of speaking—paused outside a door to input a security code, then stepped inside, never looking back, never giving any indication he was about to attack. Kurogane didn't buy it for a second. "This is the primary control room. We'll be able to deactivate all automatons generated in this facility from here."

Kurogane raised an eyebrow, finger twitching beside Ginryuu's trigger. "_We?_"

The boy—the _robot_, Kurogane reminded himself fiercely—nodded. "My particular programming prohibits me from deactivating myself. I can only be shut down by a human." He—_it—_looked down, shoulders sagging. "The only conclusion I can draw from that knowledge is that the people who programmed me intended to have me continue fulfilling my objective even if I realized the truth. They added this feature so that I could not commit suicide upon finding out that I had caused the death of humans."

Kurogane stiffened, then forced his fingers to unfurl before he could accidentally squeeze the trigger of his gun and put a plasma bullet in his foot. "Suicide?" he repeated.

The boy glanced back at him, fatigue carved into every line of his face. "I'm afraid my language software has not been updated since before the Departure. Is suicide no longer the proper term for when a being self-terminates?"

"It's . . . No, that's . . ." _Damn__, it actually thinks it's alive. _"It's the right word," he finally said, running a hand through his hair. "If you're alive, anyway."

The boy regarded him for a moment, then walked over to the desk chair in front of the main interface. The seat cushion had a deep indent, and Kurogane wondered how often the kid—_robot, he's a robot, don't forget that—_left this room, if he ever did.

"You can access the main controls from this page," the robot said, sliding the chair to the left so Kurogane could see the screens. "You'll need to go through this page to deactivate me, once I've shut down all the others." Without any further hesitation, he brushed his fingers across the screen, opening a pull-down menu that led him to a page with a few simple controls. "All you'll have to do is tap this icon, and the computer will ask you if you want to erase my memories. Once you click 'yes,' I will revert to my factory settings."

Suspicion stirred in his chest. "And what _are _your factory settings?" _Bet he goes on a murder spree. Fucking robots._

"I will go into sleep mode to await reprogramming," the robot said simply. "Once I am in sleep mode, I can also be shut down."

"That's it?"

The boy nodded. "That is all. In sleep mode, I will not move, nor will I process any sensory information, unless I am reprogrammed to do so. With no memories, it is the same as being dead."

Kurogane could only see a small sliver of his face, as they were both facing the screen, but he thought he saw the kid's eyes tighten as he deactivated the rest of the automatons.

"Alternatively, you can click _this _icon to shut me down permanently." He indicated a red circle with a vertical line cutting through the top—quite obviously a power button. "Standard automatons can be restarted after being shut down, so it would be wise to modify their programming to avoid any further tragedies if you intend to use them further. I . . . I am not certain if I would have been able to notice anything in their programming that would account for their violent behavior. I have likely been programmed to overlook such details."

"You said standard automatons could be restarted. But you're not _standard_, are you? You can't be, if you have empathy software."

The boy raised his eyebrows, as if Kurogane's conclusion surprised him somehow. "That is correct. I belong to a class of artificially intelligent machines known as Clockwork Automatons. We do not need to be reactivated every three months like standard automatons do, and though we can be rebooted from sleep mode, we cannot be restarted after we are shut down. We just die. Permanently." He rose from the chair, turning to face Kurogane. "As I said, I cannot self-terminate. I would very much appreciate it if you would shut me down."

Contempt stirred in Kurogane's chest. _How pathetic, _he thought. _He's practically got a life already and he wants to throw it away over something programmed into hi__m__. _His teeth ground together. What kind of sick bastard would build a thinking, feeling automaton, then program it to create war machines? It would've been so much better, so much more _efficient_, to make such a thing automatic, without the ability to feel remorse, but whoever had created the kid had done so knowing that the moment he discovered the real reason for his construction, he would want to kill himself. It was sick. Wrong.

"The rest of the machines are shut down?" he confirmed, watching the humanoid outlines on the screen turn from green to gray.

"Yes." The boy turned toward him. "I am ready to die."

Kurogane stared at him for a long moment, then gestured for him to get out of the way. Obediently, the robot stepped off to the side, his hands at his sides, his expression empty except for the lines of worry around his eyes that Kurogane didn't think he was aware of. With a sigh, he sat down in front of the screen, tapping through the controls the kid had shown him. As he hit the button to wipe the robot's memories, a window popped up in the middle of the screen, and a pleasant, monotone voice came from the speakers. "Warning: This model can not be restarted after being shut down. Do you still wish to continue?"

_Just do it, _Kurogane told himself. _He deserves it. _Taking a breath, he moved his hand toward the screen.


	3. The Land Where Wildflowers Grow

Chapter Three

Kurogane's finger hovered over the "shut down" button for almost thirty seconds. Then he let his hand drop into his lap and stood. "Fuck it," he muttered.

The robot looked in his direction, cocking his head to the side like a cocker spaniel. "Is something wrong?"

"It's—You . . ." Air hissed through his teeth. "Goddammit, you have a life. You could pretend to _be _human, if you actually used that brain of yours. Why would you throw that away?"

The boy blinked. "My programming . . ."

"You've still got a mind of your own, right? You've got learning software, and now you know what's been going on. You must know a lot about machines if you can build automatons. You've got to be smart enough to fix your own damn programming. So what's the fucking problem?"

"I . . ." He paused for so long that Kurogane began to wonder if some sort of fuse had blown in his brain. "I want to die," he finally said, shoulders slumping. "I've done something horrible, and I deserve to die."

"Bullshit. Someone _programmed _you to do all that, so stop acting like it's all your fault."

"But it _is _my fault!" Pain—genuine, heart-wrenching pain—echoed in every word. Kurogane took a reflexive step back, hand going to his gun. "I _had _a choice," the boy went on, seemingly unaware of the weapon in Kurogane's hand. "I had directives, commands, programming, but I also had _choices_. I _chose _not to look more in-depth at my own programming. I _chose _to accept that everything my creators built into me was ethical. I _chose _to follow my orders without question. But I didn't _have _to. That's why Clockwork Automatons are built with sophisticated AIs. So that we have a choice whether we want to continue following orders or to do as humans have always done and create our own paths in the world. I . . . I could have quit." The last words came softly, like the hush after a heavy snowfall.

"You could have quit," Kurogane agreed. "And if you really _can _resist your programming, you should be able to shut yourself down. But you won't, because you're not brave enough to do it yourself. You want to take the easy route and have me do it for you."

Silence. Then the boy nodded. "That is correct."

"Then you don't _deserve _to make that choice," Kurogane growled. "You don't _get _to run away from what you've done."

"Please," the boy whispered. "Please shut me down."

Anger burned away the last trace of pity that had wormed its way into his mind. "No. You fucked up. _You_ fix it."

"I already shut down the rest of the automatons. What more can I do?"

"I don't fucking know. Make amends. Save lives. Who gives a shit? Just . . . Stop being so goddamn selfish." _There, _he thought viciously, feeling a rush of triumph when the boy flinched. He turned away, striding toward the door, hoping he'd be able to find his way out of this place so he could get back to the camp. When he heard footsteps behind him, he spun, grabbing Ginryuu from its holster and flicking the safety off as he aimed it at the robot's chest.

The boy paused mid-step, then lifted his head, standing a little taller. "There are others with you? Other humans?" He said it as if he didn't dare hope. Kurogane's eyes narrowed as he wondered how the robot had figured that out. Then he remembered that the boy had been in the room with the monitors, had seen one of his own creations shoot and kill a human. It was only natural for him to assume there could be others.

"Yeah, what of it?"

"It's just that . . . you said that I should make amends. Does that not necessitate that I perform acts of kindness for the people I have hurt?"

_It's got to be a trap, _Kurogane thought, not lowering his gun. _He's been lying this whole time—he wants to infiltrate the __camp__._ "Believe me, you wouldn't survive ten seconds with them once they find out what you are."

"If I could have the opportunity, I would stand trial for my crimes."

His spine stiffened. "Trial? They'll have you _executed_. And that's assuming they don't shoot you on site! Why would you want a trial?"

"Am I required to answer that?"

Frustration surged through his chest. "Yes, you're _required _to answer that."

The boy nodded. "If the members of your group choose to have me executed, that is their prerogative. I have, after all, committed acts that have harmed their community, and I deserve to be punished. Do you not agree that it would be more just for me to be condemned by a third party than to request your help in my self-termination?"

"That . . . doesn't make any sense. You _know _they're going to have you executed, so—" His teeth came together with a loud _click_. "You know what? Screw it. Fine. We'll put you on trial. If you want to throw your life away so badly, it's not my problem."

A perverse look of relief brightened the kid's expression. "Thank you."

_I can't believe he's thanking me for bringing him to his execution, _he thought, disgusted. He tucked Ginryuu back in its holster and gestured to the door. "Let's get this over with, then. I've got better things to do. Walk."

Nodding, the boy started forward, his movements less mechanical than they'd been on their way in. Maybe he really _was _looking forward to his execution. _Whatever. It's not my problem. _His fingertips brushed against Ginryuu's grip. When the rest of his group decided to have the robot blown up or shut down or whatever, no doubt Kurogane would be the one elected to dole out the punishment. _Making me do the dirty work. __Bunch of spineless—_

"You never mentioned your name."

He glanced up, fingers closing around Ginryuu's grip before he slowly unfurled them. "Does it really matter?"

The kid glanced back at him, then looked away. "You are the first human I have encountered in over three hundred years. I am curious."

"The name's Kurogane," he said. "Yours?"

"My original designation was 'Small Wolf, model 81821, alpha group.'"

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "You got a real name? Or am I expected to remember _that_?"

"My human coworkers took to calling me Syaoran before they left."

He acknowledged the statement with a grunt and kept walking. As they reached the exterior doors, the boy paused to type a code into the number pad. The doors parted with the screech of warped metal. "Miracle that door even opens," Kurogane grumbled, rubbing his fingers over one ear without moving his other hand away from his gun. "How do you listen to that all the time?"

"I do not use that door."

"What door _do _you use then?" he demanded, annoyed with the robot's evasiveness.

"I do not use any of the exterior doors. I have not left the facility since the Departure."

It took a minute for that to sink in. The kid hadn't walked out of this little building even _once_ in the past three hundred years? Not even to check the "progress" of his automatons? Kurogane studied him for a minute, though that seemed rather pointless, since any robot could be programmed to lie with such subtlety and precision that he'd never have been able to distinguish falsehood from truth. For all he knew, the kid had calculated the series of lies most likely to make him let his guard down ever since he'd been detected outside the building.

Worse, it was working. What the boy said might or might not have been the truth, but Kurogane couldn't deny the sense of injustice he'd felt at the thought of someone, even a robot, working alone for three centuries without any human interaction. It made him wonder how the kid had kept himself from going mad. _Don't be an idiot, _he told himself. _He's a robot. He can't go mad. __He's not even alive, for god's sake. _"We're going that way," he said, pointing north. The boy nodded without ever looking at him and angled his course slightly. They would actually go to a rendezvous point first, away from the main camp. Kurogane hadn't _expected _to find anyone on his trip to the facility, but you never knew when you were going to run into another group of survivors, and he wouldn't have dared lead a bunch of strangers to their base without first consulting with Shougo and Kamui. Of course, Shougo was _dead _now, so they'd have to elect a new leader once he got back. But the point still stood.

For the first mile of their trek, the grass under their feet was lush. A few hardy sprouts poked through the ground, sporting pale buds that would open up into wildflowers. Whatever else had been going on at the facility, at least _some _of it had involved restoring the planet to a healthier state. But as they went on, the grass began to look limp, even yellowing in some places from acid rain. The ground had been cleared of litter, and the lack of clutter made the land feel desolate. He could see a giant mound of trash on the horizon, a tower of humanity's detritus. Old furniture, countless bags of garbage, decaying machines . . . Kurogane wouldn't have been surprised to find animal carcasses or even human bones in that pile. The robots didn't bury their dead, either; he saw several automatons, their torsos riddled with holes from his own plasma gun. Those who hadn't been carted away to the trash pile sat in pieces amidst patches of greenery as cold, metal husks that could no longer move, let alone kill.

One other object—also metal, but about as far from an automaton as you could get—sat in the distance, undisturbed despite almost two hours of sitting in place: a car built from scrap metal, old engine parts, and a few things his group had scavenged from buildings that had been constructed to last until the Return. It had no windows and few of the comforts he remembered from the time before he'd gone into cryo-sleep, but in the year since he'd woken up, he'd grown accustomed to living without those old world conveniences.

"You know how to drive, kid?"

"No."

_Great. _"You got any weapons on you?"

"_No_," the boy said, sounding shocked. "Clockwork Automatons are taught never to pick up a weapon. What use would we have for something that—"

"Yeah, okay, fine. Didn't figure you'd have any." The thought of _anyone _wandering around here without so much as a pocketknife grated on his sensibilities, but he could hardly complain when the person in question was a robot who'd spent the last three centuries building weapons to wipe out the last humans on Earth. "I'll drive," he said when they reached the car. "You sit in the passenger seat and stay still until I tell you to get out."

The boy obeyed, seeming almost eager to please him. Artificial intelligence or not, he obviously had trouble with the concept of disobedience. Assuming he was telling the truth. Assuming he wouldn't produce a cannon from his body and shoot Kurogane before he could drive them to the rendezvous point. _Damn, this is going to be a long trip, _he thought, turning the key in the ignition.


	4. Reasons for Silence

Chapter Four

The car rattled and bounced as Kurogane drove, the wheels digging furrows in the grass that would have made Syaoran's eyebrows slant if he hadn't explicitly been told to stay still. Wind sliced at his face; for whatever reason, the vehicle had no windshield. It also lacked windows. Syaoran had seen the cars before the Departure, when there had still be humans around to drive them. He remembered those vehicles being much less . . . rickety.

He noted these details only in a distant part of his mind. The bulk of his processing power focused on what he'd done and the punishment he would receive for it. True, he had never willingly harmed a human, but that did not preclude his involvement in what had happened. _I should have calculated the possibility that my automatons were behaving erratically when they started going missing, _he thought. But it wasn't as if such a thing had _never _happened. Occasionally, storms or mechanical malfunctions had damaged the automatons to the point where they could no longer function, and he'd had to build replacements. That their rate of disappearance had suddenly escalated a year ago had been a cause for curiosity, but not, to his mind, concern.

_Is it another detail I am programmed to overlook? _he wondered, frustrated with how little he knew about his own circuitry. Like all Clockwork Automatons, he knew the basics—knew that he had empathy software, as well as a sensory system which, with conscious effort, could sense things far beyond human perception. For instance, if he chose, he could switch the settings in the olfactory portion of his mind so that his sense of smell would be as precise as that of a bloodhound. But he _didn't _know the circuit-by-circuit details that had gone into his construction. He'd been built as a blank slate, programmed to walk and talk, and then essentially been told to figure everything else out through context and research. That lack of knowledge had been partially responsible for his inability to really _see _that the automatons he'd been building were battle-ready. But even so, he could not place all the blame on his ignorance. It was easy, even now, to find files from the old world, files about the construction of Clockwork Automatons. With a little research—perhaps something as light as reading his own instruction manual, which had been saved in the facility's database—he might have been able to read through the complex webs of information in his own mind to spot inconsistencies in his thought patterns. If only he'd been more attentive, no human would have come to harm because of his ignorance. That fact sent a pulse of despair through his circuits, almost activating his tear ducts before he shut them off.

They drove for hours, passing by hundreds of broken automaton corpses. He wanted to flinch away from each one, to reject the possibility that they'd really killed people, as he'd seen on the security monitors. But Kurogane had commanded him to stay still, and he hadn't said anything that could be interpreted as a withdrawal of that command since they'd gotten in the car. In fact, he hadn't said anything at all. Anxiously, Syaoran searched his memories for articles involving silence and how it pertained to human interaction and emotion. He scanned articles about a process called the "silent treatment," a common ritual performed by friends or lovers who had suffered some sort of issue in their relationship. Other articles suggested an introverted personality, which made humans less talkative in general, though the man had spoken quite freely back at the facility. Still other articles suggested the intentional withholding of information by the media, and cited examples which he did not recognize until he performed a secondary search and found that most of the examples revolved around long-dead historical figures.

Syaoran wanted to ask why Kurogane had said nothing. But again, the command to stay still kept him from so much as opening his mouth.

The land became progressively more barren as they neared the outer limits of the area restored by his automatons, until all that was left were fields of rocks and clusters of machines so degraded that he couldn't identify them. On the horizon, a few gray buildings stood, looking skeletal, ready to collapse. From the wide spaces between them, Syaoran assumed that most of the buildings had already fallen. _Three hundred years, _Syaoran thought, his emotional network registering disappointment. The feeling was mostly unfamiliar—he'd had no cause to be disappointed in the past three centuries, since he'd unwaveringly followed his orders to the precise specifications of his superiors. Until today, the strongest emotions he'd ever felt had come from the emotion-patches he'd been provided with to remove some of the tedium from his work. Joy, Motivation, Alertness, Curiosity. Perhaps if he'd used the last more often, he could have stopped this.

The car turned suddenly, whipping around a corner fast enough that Syaoran—unmoving and without a seat belt—hit the inside of the door hard enough to send sparks of pain through his nervous system. Other pains—the ache in his jaw and the discomfort in his abdomen from Kurogane's earlier assault—continued to occupy a part of his mind, reminding him that, although his body had already started repairing itself, he had to be careful not to injure it further. _Not that it matters anymore, _he thought. _Soon, I'll be executed. _

They drove a bit farther, then stopped beside an outcropping of rocks. "Get out of the car," Kurogane said. Syaoran obeyed, opening the door and exiting. A moment later, Kurogane came around the car, grabbed him by his upper arm, and led him to a large, flat rock. "Sit down."

Syaoran sat. Kurogane returned to the car, grabbing a duffel bag and a beige tarp from the back seat. He unfurled the tarp and pulled it over the top of the car, nailing it into the dirt, presumably so the wind wouldn't blow it away. When he finished, he opened up the duffel bag, producing a small box with a metal ring on the top and setting it down a few feet in front of Syaoran. Then he glanced up. "Someone will be here in a few hours to decide whether you get to come into our camp. You might as well get comfortable until then."

Syaoran relaxed, officially released from his order to stay still. His body didn't tire from sitting in one position for an extended period, but he'd been built to mimic human behavior and intelligence, so he leaned back slightly, stretching his legs. Kurogane watched him for a few seconds, then knelt beside the metal box he'd set down and twisted a dial on the side. Within moments, the metal spiral on the top of the box began to glow red with heat. "Do you eat?"

Syaoran raised his eyebrows. "My body was built to mimic a human body. My digestive tract is fully functional."

"So are you saying you _need _to eat, or you're _capable _of eating?"

"I require food if I cannot access an electrical outlet to recharge myself."

The man gave a grunt of acknowledgment and returned to the duffel bag, grabbing a frying pan. "Any requests for your last meal?"

He tensed at the reminder of his impending trial—and its obvious verdict. It took him a moment to assure himself that this was what he wanted. Not to die, precisely, but to have someone pass judgment on him. "I am programmed to find all foods palatable. So long as it can be consumed by humans, I have no preference."

"Uh-huh." Skepticism etched lines into the man's face. "Right. Eggs and bacon it is." He produced a cold-pouch from the duffel bag and opened it up to grab a half-carton of eggs and a freezer-bag full of bacon. _There must be livestock at his camp, _Syaoran thought, eyebrows pulling together. He'd thought any livestock that had survived humanity's abandonment would have gone feral by now. Where had Kurogane's people acquired pigs for bacon and chickens for eggs? Unless humanity really _had _returned from their quest through the stars. But . . . _But why hasn't he mentioned anything about the Return? Why have there been no broadcasts or announcements? Did they expect all the automatons to shut down before they came back? _

The inconsistencies were too much to ignore, especially so soon after discovering that his ignorance had allowed him to overlook crucial details. He spoke. "May I ask a question?"

Kurogane cracked an egg and let it slide into the pan. "I guess."

"Has humanity returned? Are you investigating the planet to see if it's fit for habitation again?" _Did my automatons at least do enough good to let the human race return? _

"No. They haven't come back."

"Then how is it that you are here? The atmosphere has not been fit for human life in many years."

"Been in cryo-sleep." Kurogane shrugged.

"For three centuries?"

"Yeah. We were supposed to wake up fifty years ago, when humanity was scheduled to come back, but the cryo-pods didn't unlock until about a year ago."

Syaoran blinked, the corners of his lips pulling down. The most remarkable thing about the action was that he didn't have to think about it—part of his processing power had been devoted to analyzing and mimicking the human's facial expressions, incorporating them into his own programming along with much older images. Even after just a few hours—most of them spent silently in a car—Syaoran had become significantly more capable of mimicking human expressions. "Cryo-pods are not equipped to keep their occupants alive for such long periods."

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know. We had to fuck with the things for a month before that blond idiot was satisfied. Nearly asphyxiated in all that smog."

He raised his eyebrows, curious as to who this "blond idiot" was, or how they could be given such a title despite being able to do something so technical as extending the function of a cryo-pod. _But why did they stay on Earth? Why weren't they on any of the Departure ships? _

A sudden _beep _from the duffel bag had Kurogane on his feet in an instant, the sizzling pan of bacon and eggs forgotten. Syaoran watched him grab a compact communicator from one of the side pockets and activate it. "Yeah, what is it?"

"Kuro-pon, you're supposed to give your codename before you speak so we know you're you."

Kurogane let out an exasperated sigh. "Black Steel reporting," he grumbled into the receiver. Then his voice turned stern. "Is Kamui on his way yet? I've got a bit of a situation here."

The voice on the other end sobered instantly. "What kind of situation?"

"Shougo's dead. I've captured the robot leading the facility that's been putting out all those other robots. Look, can you tell Kamui to get his ass in gear and get over here?"

"I'll let him know." With a faint _click, _the communicator shut off. Kurogane set it on top of the duffel bag, then scowled at Syaoran. He averted his eyes, letting his shoulders droop in what he hoped to appear as a submissive gesture. Then Kurogane sat down next to him, glaring at the sizzling pan. "I hope you know what you're getting into here. Death isn't the sort of thing you can just _reverse_."

"I am aware of that."

"You could probably make a run for it," Kurogane went on. "Change your mind, flee into the wilderness. You can scavenge for food or electricity or whatever."

Syaoran processed that for a moment, unsure whether the human wished for him to respond, run away, or insist that he would face his punishment with dignity. After several seconds, he nodded. "I could do all of those things and survive. That would not change the fact that I deserve to die."

Kurogane stiffened, then snatched a spatula from where he'd set it on top of the duffel bag and used it to flip the eggs and bacon. "That's a stupid way to look at it."

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up."

He fell silent, and for a time, the sound of sizzling bacon filled the evening air. A few minutes later, Kurogane produced a couple plates—plastic, Syaoran noticed—from his duffel bag and loaded them up with food from the pan. "Eat," he ordered, thrusting the plate in Syaoran's direction. He took it, nodding in gratitude (since he hadn't been released from his command to "shut up," and thus could not respond verbally), and quickly cleared his plate. This meal would charge his battery only a small percentage, since a lot of the energy he gained from the calories within would be consumed in the digestion process, but he didn't know how long it would be until he ate again, or whether he would need to recharge before he was executed.

As the sky darkened, a distant whirring caught his attention. A gray blur appeared on the horizon, kicking up a cloud of dust as it sped toward them. Behind him, Kurogane got to his feet and started shoving things into the duffel bag. "It's Kamui," he explained shortly. "Stand up and don't make any sudden moves. After the month we've had, you'll be lucky if he doesn't shoot you the second he gets out of the car."

_Wonderful, _Syaoran thought, getting to his feet.


	5. A Long Drive

Chapter Five

The Jeep raced across the barren earth, a cloud of dust rising behind it. As it drew closer, Kurogane could make out Kamui's face behind the windshield. _Alone, _he noted. Good. That would give him time to explain before anybody else threw a fit over the automaton standing at his side.

Kamui braked hard, coming to a stop less than ten feet away, then threw the car in park and jumped out, plasma gun trained on Syaoran's chest. "Is this the one that killed Shougo?"

If Kurogane hadn't known the man over a year, he might have missed the trace of quiet fury beneath Kamui's outward calm. "No. Put the gun down so I can explain."

Kamui lowered his weapon a fraction of an inch. Deciding that was the best he was going to get, Kurogane went on. "I found this one running the facility where the others were being created."

The gun lifted again, and Kamui's finger tensed on the trigger, ready to fire. "Why did you bring him here? This jeopardizes the entire camp. Do you realize what you've _done_?"

"Shut up for a second." _It's lucky Subaru's not with him, otherwise he'd have already put a bullet in the kid's head. _Kamui had always been fiercer when his brother was involved. Kurogane supposed it was usually that way with family. "I made this one shut down the rest of the automatons. I brought him here so he could stand trial."

"Trial?" Kamui echoed. "You know what the verdict would be. He'll be dead before morning. What have you accomplished except bringing a threat into our camp?"

"He wanted to be tried." _And found guilty. _"So we're giving him a trial."

Kamui's earlier fury sparked in his eyes. "This is a fool's mission. Kill him and be done with it. I won't have an automaton walking around within shooting distance of my brother."

"Why not? Afraid Subaru would miss?" Before the other man could reply, he swept on. "I wouldn't let a robot wander around our camp. We'll have him restrained and caged if we have to." He doubted like hell it would be necessary, given how intent the boy was on obeying his every word, but it would make everyone else less likely to shoot him before the trial.

Kamui glared at him, then at the robot. Slowly, gun raised, he edged closer to the big boulder that marked the rendezvous point. Kurogane waited, eyes flickering between Kamui and the kid. "You," Kamui spat as he stopped five feet away. "You think you can just waltz into _our _camp and demand a trial?"

The boy opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Kamui swept on.

"Robots aren't _welcome _in our camp. Especially not robots who've killed our people."

"He hasn't killed anyone," Kurogane said. _At least not personally. _"And I don't think he knew that he was creating robots that were."

Kamui gave him a withering stare, but some of the anger in his eyes cooled. He turned back to the robot. "Why do you want a trial?"

"I wish to right the wrongs that I have committed," Syaoran said.

"Do you understand that you'll be executed?"

"Yes."

Kamui fell silent, lowering his gun half an inch. Finally, he let out a breath. "Kurogane, are you carrying any rope with you?"

"Yeah." Everyone who left camp carried rope with them, along with any other survival supplies that they might need. Kurogane wouldn't have gone into unfamiliar territory without it.

"Tie him up. Wrists, ankles . . . everywhere. Blindfold him, too."

He went to his duffel bag, feeling a twinge of relief. Maybe it was because he thought the kid was innocent, or maybe it was because he didn't like the idea of anyone being refused the right to a trial, but he was glad the kid wouldn't be killed out-of-hand. Not that it changed the outcome of the trial—one could hardly hope that so much justice remained in this husk of a world—but at least there would _be _a trial.

Among his supplies, he found enough rope to wind around a city block, as well as a few pieces of cloth that would serve as a blindfold. _Last chance to run, _he thought, walking over to the kid, wishing the boy would develop some common sense and flee. But the boy stood resolutely, staring down the barrel of Kamui's gun as Kurogane bound his wrists and upper arms behind his back, then blindfolded him with a strip of cloth. He wondered if either would be sufficient to stop the kid if he decided to flee—most robots were stronger than humans, since they'd tended to end up doing the labor-intensive jobs that humans considered beneath them. It was possible that this one could rip free of the ropes like tissue paper. But there was no reason to point that out while Kamui stood, finger on the trigger, scowling at the kid like he personally wanted to smash his circuits.

"We'll take the Jeep," Kamui finally said. "It's sturdier."

"Fine." Kurogane nudged the boy's shoulder, leading him toward the Jeep.

"Keep a gun to his head while I drive," Kamui said, sliding into the driver's seat. "If he attacks, shoot him."

"He won't attack. And quit ordering me around." Lifting the kid with one arm and dropping him in the back seat, Kurogane found a relatively comfortable place to crouch while he pressed the barrel of his plasma gun to the boy's skull. Or, more accurately, the metal plating meant to simulate a skull. He thought he saw the kid stiffen as the cold steel touched his forehead, but it could have been his imagination. "Let's go."

Kamui started the Jeep and began driving. It would take about an hour to get back to the camp, longer if they ran into trouble. Between his own frustration and Kamui's sullen silence, it would be a long hour. _Stupid kid should have run, _he thought, watching the boy lie there, bound and blindfolded. The engine growled; the wheels dug furrows in the loose dirt that would disappear with the next windstorm. Rocks turned up by the heavy tread of the wheels bounced against the trail they left behind, an uneven rhythm of cracks and thuds. And even with all that noise, there was no escaping the silence hanging over the three of them.

Eventually, the familiar landscape around the camp came into view. The trail they'd been following became more obvious—which was to say that Kurogane could now actually _see _the path worn by the frequent passage of their vehicles—as it wound around an outcropping of rocks that sheltered the camp from the elements. Kamui slowed, following the path and parking in a narrow crevice between rock formations. "Make sure that _thing _hasn't cut through any of the ropes," Kamui said, cutting the engine.

Kurogane scowled. "How paranoid _are _you?"

The younger man rounded on him, eyes flashing with anger. "I am only paranoid because _you _decided to jeopardize everyone in camp. This _monster _killed Shougo."

"An automaton killed Shougo."

"And this one created that automaton. Only a fool would trust it to remain docile."

The only thing that kept him from punching Kamui in the face was the knowledge that he'd have probably reacted the same way, had their situations been reversed. But damn it, Kamui hadn't heard two words from the kid. What did he know? "Fine," he said through his teeth, checking the ropes around the kid's wrists and upper arms. Then, without removing the blindfold, he nudged the boy toward the camp, lowering his voice so Kamui wouldn't hear. "Just keep your head down and don't talk unless someone asks you a direct question."

The robot lowered his head, shuffling in the direction Kurogane led him. Kamui followed, pointing a gun at the kid's back and muttering to himself. Kurogane tuned him out, keeping his eyes forward as the camp came into view.

Several tents poked up from the ground, scavenged from the few buildings that had lasted since the Departure. Two cook-fires, one near the center of camp and one near a curving rock formation that would keep wind and rain from dousing it, sent swirls of embers up into the sky. He saw Yuzuriha and Souma tending the larger fire, over which they'd hung a cauldron of soup—chicken noodle, judging by the smell—that would feed everyone in camp tonight. Both looked up and waved as he approached, then frowned as they took in the ropes binding the kid's arms. "Who's this?" Souma asked, walking around the fire and fingering the knife in her belt.

"Long story. We need to call a camp meeting."

Surprise flickered in Souma's eyes. She looked at the kid, then back to Kurogane. "Seishirou and his group are out scavenging. They won't be back until tomorrow morning."

Kurogane nodded, not letting his relief show. Seishirou was a wild card—he might argue to keep the boy alive in order to poke at his circuits, or he might insist on a quick death—but his "friends" were more likely to start grabbing pitchforks and torches than show any measure of sense or restraint. Better that they weren't here for the trial. "This meeting can't wait. We'll have to deal with it without them."

With a nod, Souma went off to fetch everyone else, taking Yuzuriha with her. Most would be in the fields this time of day, trying to coax fruit from the hardy plants that had survived the environmental crises Earth had endured in humanity's wake. He hated taking anyone away from that work—it was damned difficult to convince them to do it in the first place—but it had to be done.

Indeed, it took only minutes for everyone to arrive. Just over two dozen survivors, counting the absent members of Seishirou's party. One less today, with Shougo dead. The thought soured Kurogane's stomach, and for a moment, he reconsidered his decision to bring the robot here. What kind of trial could he expect from these people after all the trouble they'd been through with the automatons? What kind of justice?

The last arrival came not from the fields, but from a small, ventilated tent near the main cook-fire. Fai Fluorite, the mechanical genius who'd modified the cryo-pods so they would support human life for three centuries in a hostile world. Fai Fluorite, who had repaired and altered all the vehicles in camp so they could run on the gritty, low-quality fuel they managed to produce. Fai Fluorite, who controlled the camp's radio transmitters so everyone could communicate even when they weren't in the immediate area.

"Kuro-pyon, you didn't tell us you'd brought back a _guest_! I'd have dressed up if I'd known."

Fai Fluorite, who, as far as Kurogane was concerned, was a complete and utter _moron. _

"What's this all about, Kurogane?" Souma asked, her expression wary. "Why did you need to call a meeting so badly?"

"Because we're going to be holding a trial."

Whispers moved through the crowd of survivors, some worried, some confused, some excited. "What sort of trial?" asked Kyle, distrust plain on his face. Kurogane had never liked the man, but Kyle was a doctor, and that wasn't the sort of person you just drove off when every life in your tiny population depended on their knowledge.

_N__o way to sugarcoat this one. _Kurogane sighed and nudged the kid forward. "This is the robot who created the automatons that have been attacking our camp. The purpose of the trial is to determine how he will pay for his crimes."


	6. Human Decency

_Author's Notes:_

_Sorry about the long delay. I've been busy with _Shatterheart _(luckily, the epilogue is complete and will be posted within the next hour or so). After that, this fic officially becomes a priority project, so delays of this length will be avoided in the future (probably). _

_Recap: Syaoran, a highly advanced Clockwork Automaton, has made contact with the first group of humans to walk the Earth in three centuries. However, for unknown reasons, Syaoran's programming led him to believe he was creating automatons to restore the environment while in reality, the robots he created were designed to kill humans. Believing himself a murderer, Syaoran accompanied Kurogane to the human encampment where he now waits to stand trial for his crimes._

* * *

><p>Chapter Six<p>

"Why the hell do we need a trial for this?"

"We should kill it."

"Y'think Fai could take him apart and use him for scrap?"

"Stay back. That thing's dangerous."

Syaoran pressed his lips together, his processors sorting out each individual voice so that he heard every exclamation of hatred, every death threat, every disgusted remark. Even knowing he was guilty, he couldn't help wanting to recoil. He had expected hatred. He had expected demands for justice.

But he hadn't expected it to hurt so much.

"Enough of this," Kurogane said from behind him. Blindfolded, Syaoran had to rely on his heat sensors to pinpoint the locations of everyone in the group. Many of them had drawn back at the announcement, but a few had stepped forward, raising their arms. Their shouts were the loudest. He suspected any one of them would put a plasma bolt through his skull the moment they had the chance, and for the first time, that possibility made his emotional network light up with fear. _How strange, _thought the more analytical part of his mind. _I felt no fear when Kurogane pointed a gun at me back at the facility. Were my emotional programs so dormant after centuries of disuse that I'd lost my survival instinct? _That could be problematic, he realized, as he'd made the decision to stand trial—knowing he would be executed—before his survival instincts had kicked in again.

"Enough!" Kurogane snapped. The louder voices quieted, though quiet murmurs continued to ripple through the crowd. "No one's killing anyone until we reach a verdict."

"It's not even human," said a female voice. Syaoran analyzed the tone and pitch, judging the speaker to be in her mid-thirties. "At best, it's property. And if it's dangerous, it needs to be destroyed."

_How logical, _Syaoran thought, cocking his head to the side. His sensors picked up on a ripple of motion—his slight movement had apparently alarmed some of the people standing close, and they'd shuffled backward. Silently, he resolved to stay still so as not to unnerve anyone else.

"It has empathy software," Kurogane said, stepping up to Syaoran's side. "It's as human as any of us."

"Then it's a criminal," said a man's voice. "Look, this may be harsh, but it _killed _Shougo. Even if it _were _human—and it's not—we'd still be considering the death penalty."

This condemnation, so mellow compared to the angry murmurs around it, only seemed that much more damning for its reasonable tone. Indeed, the grumbling rose in volume, everyone in camp whispering amongst themselves. Syaoran sifted through several sociological reports on the mob mentality, worried that the group would dissolve into a riot before the trial even started. _People will be hurt, _Syaoran thought. _And I'll die causing even more suffering than I already have. _

"Kamui," Kurogane said, his voice quiet but urgent.

"I know," the younger man said, his voice clipped. "We'll need to call for a smaller jury. There's no way we can get a fair trial with everyone egging each other on like this."

_If Kamui is defending my trial, he must have realized the same thing I have, _Syaoran thought, remembering how harsh Kamui had been when Kurogane had suggested bringing Syaoran back to camp. _He knows this is going to turn into a riot if they don't get it under control. _He scanned a dozen more articles, trying to figure out how to ease the tension, but he could find none that gave him any answers about how someone in his position should deal with a situation like this. Inaction seemed the only logical course, considering that even his innocuous movement a few moments ago had frightened the very people who'd been calling for his death.

"Take him to the quarantine area," Kurogane said, voice low. "Him being here isn't helping anything."

"And what are _you _going to do?" Kamui demanded.

"Set up a smaller jury. Obviously."

"You're going to cherry-pick anyone who will ask for lenience."

Syaoran detected a note of accusation in Kamui's voice, confirmed by the cold fury in Kurogane's response a moment later. "Do you really think I would?"

A pause.

"No," Kamui said at last. A hand closed around Syaoran's upper arm, pulling him back, away from the mob. "But I get to pick half."

"Fine."

His handler—Syaoran thought it was Kamui, as he remembered Kurogane's fingers being thicker—dragged him away faster than he could easily follow with his current settings. Syaoran recalibrated his sense of balance and dialed up his external sensors so he wouldn't trip over any rocks or other debris as Kamui guided him. The man wasn't gentle—not that Syaoran had expected him to be—but he didn't seem as volatile as he had when he'd chewed Kurogane out earlier. Perhaps the hour-long drive back to camp had calmed him, or perhaps Kamui was more level-headed than he let on.

They came to a stop, and Kamui pressed down on Syaoran's shoulder. "Duck your head."

Puzzled, Syaoran stooped, questing out with his sensors. Humans couldn't sense objects the way he could, but that didn't mean his sensors were particularly adept at making sense of his surroundings. It was rather like a less useful form of echolocation—a technique that could be performed silently with his software, but could not help him map out the world in any great detail. He could tell there was something in front of him, but it felt somehow flimsy, like a sheet or a curtain.

Nevertheless, he didn't want to make his situation worse by disobeying, so at a nudge from his handler, he cautiously edged forward, stepping over a raised edge and into the hollow, flimsy cube in front of him. He heard the squeak of poorly-maintained metal, followed by a _click_.

"Don't try to escape," Kamui said. "And if anyone comes over here and starts poking you with a stick . . . Well, you won't be alive much longer anyway."

Syaoran eased his body to the floor of his cage. It had to be a cage, he thought, and the noises he'd heard before had been Kamui locking him in. That was the only way Kamui's comment about escaping made any sense. Syaoran didn't mind the captivity, but he wished the man had removed the blindfold. It would have been nice, Syaoran thought wistfully, to see the sky again before they executed him.

* * *

><p>"All right, that's enough," Kurogane said, addressing the whole camp. "You were all here in 2140 when they passed the law declaring emotion-capable automatons the right to a fair trial. Just because there's no big government left doesn't mean we aren't going to hold to <em>some <em>system of justice."

"We're all for justice, Kurogane," Kyle said, making a placating gesture. "But it's important that we make sure everyone else in camp is safe. That is, and has always been, priority number one."

"It still is," Kurogane said, since disagreeing would have been suicidal. "We're going to keep the ki—the robot in holding while we reach a verdict. As long as we do that, he won't be a danger to anyone." He decided not to mention the fact that many of the automatons that had been around since the Robot Wars of 2132 were equipped with concealed weapons and combat training; he figured if the kid had any of that, he'd have used it by now.

"Well, let's get on with the trial then," said Kentaro. Kurogane didn't know him well—Kentaro had few aspirations to lead the group, and his everyday work hadn't intersected much with Kurogane's own, but with a group this small, everyone knew everyone else by name, and Kentaro had always struck him as a bit of an airhead. Not on the same level as Fai, who acted like an idiot despite being a mechanical genius, but still not clever.

"We're going to hold a smaller trial. Seven jury members—three to be chosen by myself, three by Kamui, and one more by popular vote." That would make it impossible for there to be a tie, but it would also appease at least some of the angry, terrified people standing in front of him. He _had _to make them believe their opinions mattered if he wanted to avoid getting lynched, and having them elect a representative was the easiest way to do that. Of course, they'd probably elect someone who wanted the kid executed, but he couldn't do anything about that. "Souma, I want you to record the number of votes each person gets and make sure everyone only votes once."

"Of course," Souma said. As far as he remembered, she hadn't said a word since the meeting had started. Which meant he had no idea whether she agreed with the trial, or what sort of justice she'd ask for if _she _was on the jury. Kurogane forced himself to admit that he'd been hoping for a more obvious reaction from her. Souma was one of the very few people he counted as a friend, but she wasn't shy about disagreeing with him, and although she'd make a good jury member in general, she would still call for execution if she really believed the kid deserved it.

"May we hold a brief conference before the vote?" Fai called, hand raised. His usual goofy smile had disappeared, and its absence made him look unnervingly sober.

"That's up to you. Have someone picked within the hour."

The group clustered together, chattering amongst themselves. The undercurrent of fear and disgust worried him. His decision to bring the automaton back here hadn't been a popular one, and he wasn't looking forward to the backlash. Not wanting to get any deeper into the current discussion than necessary, he headed over to the quarantine area at the edge of camp, passing Kamui on his way.

"For my three picks, I want Fuuma, Yuzuriha, and Kusanagi."

Kurogane raised an eyebrow. He'd expected Kamui to select his brother as one of the jury members, and it took him a moment to realize why he hadn't. _He doesn't want Subaru to feel responsible for deciding to execute someone._

"Have _you _decided who you're going to choose?"

"I've got an idea of who I want, yeah."

Kamui frowned, then lowered his voice. "Souma and Tomoyo did the last trial. I hope you're not planning on putting them through that again."

"Not them," he said, though a part of him wanted them on the jury. But they were the people he was closest to, and the last thing he needed was to make people think he was manipulating the vote. No, he needed someone more impartial, someone who would feel less pressure to agree with him, but who also wouldn't condemn the boy out of spite for him. "Chii might be a good candidate. Maybe Masoyoshi."

"Masoyoshi is practically still a child."

"There's no such thing as children anymore," Kurogane said. "We're survivors. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how young you are."

"I suppose," Kamui said. "But be aware that a trial of this magnitude is going to require all of us to tread carefully. You might think there wouldn't be political upheavals in a group this small, but that's not something you should bet your life on."

_I already have, _he thought. "I'm going to go guard the robot, make sure no one tries to dismantle him before we reach a verdict." He didn't wait for a reply, but continued on to the outskirts of camp. A handful of cages were lined up against an outcropping of rocks, each covered with a tarp to keep the rain off. They didn't use the cages much. This was the quarantine area, and the cages were for patients whose injuries made them insensible or dangerous. Several times, however, they'd been used as holding cells. Crime hadn't been vanquished in their small group, only made more personal.

The boy had been placed in the middle cage. Kamui hadn't bothered to remove his blindfold, and the prisoner sat cross-legged, head down, a picture of patience. He didn't stir when Kurogane approached. "You've survived longer than I expected," he said, sitting outside the cage. It was only the truth.

"I appreciate you doing this for me," Syaoran whispered. There was something very human beneath the gratitude: a trace of fear.

"This probably doesn't mean much," Kurogane said, leaning back so his shoulders rested against the cage, "but I don't think you deserve to die."

"Thank you."

"Just . . . don't get your hopes up, all right? I've given you all the help I can, but if we're being realistic, your chances of living to see tomorrow morning are pretty small."

"I'm still grateful that you tried. I wish . . . I wish that I could repair the damage that has been done, but I will settle for whatever justice your people choose for me."

Kurogane closed his eyes. "You sure you don't want to run? That cage is pretty flimsy. You could snap the latch holding the door shut and be free."

"I will not run."

"Then you're a hell of a lot braver than most people." He closed his eyes, surprised by the guilt surging through his chest. He'd done everything he could, but it wasn't good enough. All he could do was hope that human decency would prevail and the jury, whoever they turned out to be, would decide to be lenient.

_Relying on human decency, _he thought, looking up at the stars. He remembered the night of the Departure, when the wealthy elite had climbed aboard their ships and abandoned everyone else to the ravaged, treacherous planet. If Fai hadn't modified their cryo-pods, this little group would be just as dead as everyone else who'd been left behind. _Human decency, _he thought, closing his eyes. _What a joke. _


	7. The Trial

_Author's Notes:_

_As I find myself doing far too often of late, I will begin this chapter with an apology. I have allowed this fic to go without an update for _far _too long, particularly since I said it was going to become one of my priority fics. The reasons for the delay are numerous, mostly revolving around other projects which I've recently been working on (mostly in different fandoms, unfortunately). But I've been chipping away at this chapter for a couple months now, fiddling with the bits I'd written and trying to write it in such a way that it was both interesting and at least somewhat realistic. In any case, for those of you who have been waiting for this chapter, please accept my humblest apologies and know that I will be doing my best to be more diligent in the future._

_Also, just for clarification, I don't know anything about being a lawyer, or how the judiciary system actually works, except that it's all much more complicated than the movies make it look, so please understand that the court proceedings shown in this chapter are oversimplified at best and grossly inaccurate at worst._

_One more thing: If any of you are fans of Obsidian Buterfly's work, you may recognize one of the characters in this chapter. Obsidian and I occasionally borrow each other's OCs to use in minor roles, and I think the crossover adds a unique element to each of our works. Anyway, Obsidian has been very helpful with making sure that her characters are relatively consistent across stories, and if any of you are particularly familiar with her work, you may notice her influence here._

* * *

><p>Chapter Seven<p>

"Souma, what's the popular vote for the seventh jury member?" Kurogane asked, eyes flicking to the cage where the automaton sat, blindfolded, awaiting his trial.

"Fai edged out Kyle in the vote. Eleven to ten. We also had a couple votes for Kusanagi, one for Subaru, and one for Seishirou."

Kurogane scowled. "Why the blond idiot?"

"Fai knows more about technology than any of us. He'll have a more complete understanding of the situation."

His eyebrows pulled together, but he nodded. It hadn't even occurred to him to put the moron on the jury, but Fai had been acting strange ever since the kid had arrived. Serious. Pensive. Souma had a point, though—Fai _was _the resident engineering expert, however much Kurogane detested his gratingly cheerful demeanor.

"Kamui appointed Kusanagi, Yuzuriha, and Fuuma to the jury. Do you know who you're picking?"

He nodded. "Ryuuo, Lantis, and Madiha."

Souma raised an eyebrow. "Okay, Lantis I can understand, but the others? Ryuuo's only sixteen and Madiha . . ." At his sharp look, Souma trailed off. "She's still relatively new to all this, and this'll be her first trial as a member of our group."

"Yeah, but we can't afford to coddle her. It's been four months now. It's time to start treating her like one of us." He shrugged. Maddy was almost twenty-one, and all things considered, she had a pretty solid moral grounding. A rare trait these days. "Those are my choices," he said, turning and heading toward an open area surrounded by benches. "Let's get this over with."

Most of the group had already taken their seats, with Kamui and his appointed jury members on one of the benches in front. As Kurogane approached, Souma cleaved through the crowd, making the people he'd named aware of their selection. As expected, Ryuuo and Madiha gaped and stammered in surprise, while Lantis stepped up to the front bench with solemn dignity. He'd been a lawyer once, standing for a number of reprehensible criminals, so it was no surprise that whenever they held a trial, he played a significant role in it.

Fai was the last to arrive, and he positioned himself front and center, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his palms pressed against the underside of his jaw. He waved as Kurogane passed in front of him, grinning like an idiot.

They hadn't had many trials since they'd awoken from their extended slumber, but there was enough of a routine that it wouldn't feel like a complete farce. Kamui stood off to the side with the boy, still tied up and blindfolded, behind him. At Kurogane's signal, they came forward, and a hush fell over the group.

"All right," Kurogane said, gesturing to Syaoran. "We're here to determine which crimes this automaton is guilty of and how we're going to deal with them. Kamui, take his blindfold off."

Kamui shot him an annoyed look, but untied the piece of cloth wrapped around the boy's eyes. As it fell away, he blinked, a look of dull surprise flitting across his face before he lifted his head to look at the jury. Madiha, Ryuuoh, and Yuzuriha stirred uneasily. Kusanagi frowned. Lantis stood resolutely, unperturbed. Fuuma adjusted his sunglasses. And Fai . . . Fai wasn't smiling anymore, but his eyes were keen with interest, and for once he was being quiet. All in all, not as hostile a reaction as he'd expected. Good.

Sensing everyone was ready, Kurogane turned to the kid. "Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

Surprise glinted in the boy's eyes, as if he hadn't expected such formality. "I swear," he said firmly. Kurogane nodded. When he'd first encountered the robot, paranoia had warned him not to believe a word he said, but it hadn't taken long to realize that the boy lacked the social awareness to lie convincingly, and Kurogane doubted the notion had even occurred to him.

"And you, Kurogane?" Fuuma called from the jury. "Are you going to be testifying, too?"

"Yeah." He glanced at Kamui, who sighed.

"Kurogane, do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

"Yes, I swear."

"Then the first accusation we're going to address is the automaton's role in Shougo's death," Kamui said, his voice neutral. Though his eyes had never strayed from the kid's face, he turned to address him more directly. "Describe your account of the event and your involvement in it."

Syaoran straightened slightly, staring into the middle-distance. "Several hours prior to my arrival here, I received a notification that an unauthorized visitor had arrived at the facility where I had been living since my activation date," he began, then went on to explain that the unauthorized visitor had in fact been Kurogane. He described their meeting, showing only the barest flickers of emotion. As he spoke, Kurogane studied the jury. Ryuuo and Yuzuriha looked nervous, fidgeting on their bench. Fuuma had leaned back, crossing his arms and smirking faintly. Why Kamui had selected _him _for the jury was anyone's guess, but since Fuuma always looked like he was lounging, Kurogane couldn't read much into it. Lantis was as stern as Fuuma was relaxed. Madiha's eyebrows had slanted sharply downward, and she scowled, though whether her ire was directed at the kid or at the situation itself, Kurogane couldn't be sure. He hoped it was the latter; the girl couldn't hide her feelings to save her life, but she was usually pretty reasonable. Then there was the idiot, whose true feelings Kurogane couldn't guess even on when he _wasn't _hiding anything.

And so the boy told his story, laying out the details clearly and concisely, occasionally repeating verbatim the conversations which had taken place after he'd met Kurogane. It was only when he got to the part where they'd rewound the security footage that his composure faltered.

"It was horrible," he said, shuddering. Kurogane's eyebrows knit together. True, Clockwork Automatons were equipped with empathy software and could, with practice, learn to imitate human behavior, but compared to how the boy had acted earlier today, the tiny shiver was a shockingly expressive gesture, and the jury tensed, some leaning forward as if to get a better look. Seemingly unaware of their intensified scrutiny, the robot went on. "But until that moment, I had not been aware that the automatons I'd been creating were fulfilling any function other than the environmental cleansing for which they had been programmed. Seeing this, I realized that my ignorance had led me to continue replacing the automatons which had been behaving with hostility toward your group. I returned to the control room to shut down the remaining automatons, then asked Kurogane if he would permanently deactivate me so that I could not cause further harm."

At this point, Lantis raised a hand. "Question," he said, waiting for Kurogane to nod before he addressed the kid. "If you were intent on being deactivated, why didn't you do it yourself?"

"For Clockwork Automatons, deactivation requires the removal of memories and the initialization of the subsequent shutdown sequence, which is not reversible. The shutdown sequence physically destroys several key components, including our processors, memory banks, and programming chips, all of which would have to be replaced entirely in order to make our bodies function again. Because of the cost of deactivation, we are programmed to be unable to self-terminate, and require a human to do so."

Lantis's expression remained placid. "From what I understand, Clockwork Automatons were created to simulate human life, including our freedom to choose our own paths. Would you say that, at least in regards to self-termination, you lack free will?"

A pause.

"No," the boy said at last. "Though we cannot deactivate ourselves, it is feasible for us to engage in activities which would perform the same function as a total shutdown."

"Can you give an example?"

"Theoretically, I could travel to the nearest active volcano and allow the heat to melt the components which make me alive. Barring that, I could throw myself from a tall structure and try to land in such a way as to maximize the damage to my skull, where most of those components are stored. It is not against my programming to do these things."

"Then why ask for assistance in your suicide?" Lantis pressed, and just for a moment, something very human flickered in the boy's eyes. Something like shame.

"Either of those options presented the possibility of severe pain," Syaoran said, looking down. "Furthermore, if the destruction of my processors had been incomplete, it is possible that rather than dying, such as it is, I would have lingered in a state of agony until the elements degraded my circuits to the point where I could no longer function, a process which could have taken weeks, if not months, even in poor conditions. But using the proper shutdown process would have guaranteed a swift death. That is why I requested help in my suicide."

Lantis's gaze fell to Kurogane. "And you denied him this?"

He stiffened, anger coiling like a viper in his stomach. "Of course I did! Deactivating him would be no better than helping someone shoot themselves."

Yuzuriha flinched. "Can I just . . . Um." She squirmed in her chair as the other jury members looked at her. "It's just . . . back before the Departure there were laws that essentially placed emotion-compatible robots on equal legal standing with humans, but—" She clamped her mouth shut, her eyebrows furrowing. "But things are different now. The world pretty much ended—we'd be dead from the toxins in the atmosphere if we hadn't been in cryo-sleep so long. I'm not saying there's no place for justice anymore, but isn't our survival more important than making sure robots have the same rights as humans?"

"I would argue that any society which does not value the rights of other intelligent lifeforms, organic or mechanical, does not have the right to consider themselves civilized," Lantis said coolly before redirecting his attention to Kurogane. "That said, this case appears to come down to a few salient points: one, that this automaton made decisions which resulted in the death of one of our leaders, as well as several others in our group in months past; two, that although the defendant was at the time unaware of the consequences of those actions, he nonetheless pursued said actions; and three, that our real purpose here is not to determine _whether _he is guilty, but how we are going to handle his punishment. Is that accurate?"

Kurogane flexed his jaw, then let out a long breath. "Yeah. That's about right."

Lantis nodded. "In that case, I would like to hear the rest of the defendant's account."

The jury's attention shifted back to Syaoran, who—statue-still and silent—had seemed to fade into the background while everyone discussed him. After a pause, he resumed his explanation, describing in detail how, upon realizing Kurogane had no intention of shutting him down, he had requested to be brought to trial. When he finished, he fell silent, glancing at Kurogane as if seeking approval.

"Does anyone have any questions about what they've heard so far?" he asked.

Fai raised his hand. "If we decide to execute him, do I get to take him apart and study what's left?"

Kurogane gave him a look that very clearly translated into_ What the fuck is wrong with you? _"No," he said flatly. "Any other questions?"

"Do we get to hear your version of the story now?" Fuuma asked.

Kurogane sighed, launching into an abridged version of what had happened. He and Shougo had been patrolling near the facility, trying to identify the patterns in the murderous automatons' movements, when Shougo had been detected. Kurogane had shot the robot using his Ginryuu .007, but by then it had been too late, and Shougo had lain dead from a plasma bolt. After that, Kurogane had gone to the facility at the center of the robots' territory in search of vengeance, but from there his story pretty much matched up with the kid's.

"So to your knowledge," Lantis said when he finished, "is everything the automaton said accurate?"

"Yeah."

The man nodded, his mouth settling into a firm line. It was an expression Kurogane knew well, and it meant that, however the final vote went, Lantis had made up his mind. _Maybe he's actually__ decided not to have the kid killed, _Kurogane thought without much hope. Out of all the jury members, Lantis had been the most important person to win over. He had years of practice convincing others of his clients' innocence or guilt, and though he wasn't playing the role of a lawyer in this trial, he would have a lot of influence over the final verdict. "Are there any other questions?" Kurogane asked.

Madiha, silent throughout the proceedings, raised her hand. At his nod, she spoke. "I have a question for the automaton."

"Go ahead," Kamui said as Syaoran's gaze focused on the bespectacled girl.

Madiha looked him straight in the eye, her arms crossed. "If you get to live, how are you going to make up for what you've done?"

"I . . . I don't know." Syaoran bowed his head. "I don't think I _can _make up for it."

She scowled, her eyebrows slanting even further. "But if you _could, _how would you do it?"

"I would do everything in my power to benefit the people I have wronged." The words came slowly, as if he were measuring each one. And perhaps he was—with his processing power, he'd have no trouble distilling whatever he wanted to say into its ideal shape. That he seemed to care more about making his meaning clear than obfuscating it with fancy words or technical jargon spoke highly of his sincerity, at least as far as Kurogane was concerned. "More than anything, I want the outcome of this trial to be satisfactory for the people of this camp, even if it means I will be executed."

A pregnant silence followed his proclamation. If anything, Madiha looked more annoyed than she had a moment ago. The rest of the jury members looked at one another, saying nothing until Fai—strangely somber—spoke. "If there is nothing else, I think we'd best take a few minutes to reach our decision."

Kurogane nodded, stomach knotting. He walked over to the kid, resting a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon. We'll take you back to the holding cell while they talk it over."

Syaoran said nothing, merely allowed Kurogane to lead him away as the jury discussed his fate.


	8. Black and White

Chapter Eight

"It's got to be a lie," Yuzuriha said, glancing over her shoulder as if worried the automaton might hear her. Which, Fai mused, was entirely possible, since Clockwork Automatons possessed a top-quality sensory system.

"If it's a lie, it's awfully thorough," Fuuma said, absently cracking his knuckles.

Lantis shifted. "If we accuse the automaton of lying, then we must also level that accusation at Kurogane for confirming the story."

Ryuuo wrapped his arms around his chest, as if the thought of their leader deceiving them had chilled him to the bone. _So young, _Fai thought a little ruefully. _And so desperate to see morality in black and white__. _He'd been the same, once. So blinded by the brilliance of his own potential that he'd ignored the signs that something was amiss until the one thing that had truly mattered to him had been ripped away.

"Well, _I _don't think either of them were lying," Madiha said, eyebrows slanting as she scowled. Ryuuo nodded vigorously as the bespectacled girl glanced around the circle. "What would be the point? _He's _the one who asked for a trial."

"But what if he was lying about that?" Yuzuriha said, her voice shrill. "He could've claimed he asked for a trial in order to make it _seem _like he'd tell the truth."

Fai couldn't decide whether to sympathize with Yuzuriha or not. On one hand, she was voicing an opinion built from fear and distrust. Hardly the ideal condition for decision-making. But her wariness was also justified. Two months ago, during a raid, she'd encountered one of the rogue automatons and nearly been killed by a plasma bolt. Ryuuo had shoved her out of the way in time, but it had been a near thing. Not that Fai had been there to see it—Kamui and Shougo had deemed him too valuable to risk on mere supply runs. _Not that I can do much good without equipment to work with, _he thought wistfully. Though perhaps _that _problem, at least, could be remedied. The fact was that he wanted an opportunity to study the automaton. Clockwork models had the most advanced software of any sentient machine in the world at the time of the Departure.

Of course, Kurogane had specifically said that he wasn't allowed to take the automaton apart if they executed it. So there was really only one course of action Fai could take.

"If that were the case," Lantis said, responding to Yuzuriha's statement, "he took a desperate risk coming here. It's clear he managed to convince Kurogane of his innocence—why not try to convince him to let him escape, rather than insist on bringing him into hostile territory for the sake of a trial? It's illogical."

"Could he be trying to protect something else?" Kusanagi asked.

Lantis frowned as if he hadn't considered the possibility. "What else is there for him to protect, apart from his own existence?"

"Maybe there's still something going on at that facility he's been running."

"Well then, we can go back and poke around," Maddy said. "Better to do that than execute him for no reason."

"We have a reason!" Yuzuriha said. "He confessed to making the robots that killed Shougo and the others. Even if he didn't know, he's still dangerous." She turned to Ryuuo, her delicate hands clenched into fists. "You've seen what those robots were capable of. For all we know, this one is even _more _dangerous."

Ryuuo hesitated. "Well . . . Maybe," he admitted, glancing self-consciously about as if he wanted to say more. When everyone waited expectantly, he cleared his throat and went on. "I mean, I don't like the idea of executing someone based on the fact that they _might _be dangerous, especially if they didn't know what they were doing. It would be like executing someone who accidentally committed murder while sleepwalking."

"That's still manslaughter," Lantis pointed out.

"Yeah, but people don't get executed for that."

"Not in the old world," Kusanagi said, a tinge of regret in his voice. "Back then, we had correctional facilities and reprogramming centers for those kinds of people, but now . . ." He shook his head. "We don't have the resources to keep prisoners long-term."

"So use him for labor," Maddy said, crossing her arms. "He said he'd do anything to make up for what he did, so put him to work tending the fields. That's what we'd have done back at . . ." She faltered, and Fai found himself leaning forward, curious. They'd found Madiha four months ago, taking refuge in an abandoned hospital, but the only explanation she'd given for how she'd survived in this world was that she'd lived with another colony and been forced to flee after they'd been attacked by bandits. Even now, she sometimes woke up from her nightmares with a strangled cry on her lips. They had all known suffering before the Departure, but for Madiha, whatever trauma she'd experienced was as crisp in her dreams as if she'd only just experienced it.

"What do you think?" Lantis asked, turning to Fai.

He'd been waiting for the moment the others would ask for his perspective. His knowledge of technology was unmatched by anyone else here, and though limited equipment and minimal electricity meant that he was rarely useful in the day-to-day life of the camp, he _had _been chosen by the rest of the survivors for the jury. "I think Madiha presents an excellent alternative," he said, glancing up in time to see victory flare in her eyes, though she blushed when she saw him watching her. "Clockwork Automatons may not be built for hard labor—their strengths lie primarily in the sophisticated AI which lends them their ability to learn—but it sounds like he's willing to accept whatever sentence we decide on. Executing him offers us nothing, but having another hand in the fields, or someone to dig a new latrine when the one we're using fills up? That's the sort of help we could use." _And it will give me a chance to study a Clockwork model firsthand. _

The others exchanged glances. Yuzuriha spoke first. "Is there any way you can, I don't know, check his programming? To make sure he's not planning something?"

"I could poke around a bit," he said, evading the real question. What she really wanted to know was whether he could prove whether or not the automaton would harm them. But to decipher everything he'd learned in his three hundred years of operation was actually an impossible task—as impossible as sifting through the brain of any normal human to identify every thought they'd ever had. It would take a lifetime to do so, and even then, there was a good chance Fai would never be able to confirm anything one way or the other. Just as people didn't do everything they meant to, or committed acts on impulse, the amount of thought devoted to a certain course of action didn't necessarily indicate whether the person would follow through with it. "Besides, Kuro-pyon said I couldn't take him apart if we executed him, so if I'm going to run any tests, we'll need him alive."

Kusanagi, Ryuuo, and Yuzuriha looked vaguely discomfited by this last statement. Fuuma smiled knowingly. Lantis was . . . well, he was _Lantis_, which meant that the chances of seeing any reaction from him were slim at best. And Maddy . . .

Maddy fumed, her jaw clamped tight to keep whatever she wanted to say from escaping her lips. Fai gave her his best smile, which only made her bristle like a cat. "Don't worry, Maddy-chan," he said, the nickname further inciting her ire. "Clockwork Automatons may have sensory software, but you can shut off their response to pain. He won't feel a thing."

"I know _that_," she snapped. "But that doesn't mean you have to sound so excited about it."

"At any rate," Lantis said before the confrontation could escalate further, "it appears we all have some idea of how we want to handle the situation. Some of us want to see the automaton destroyed. Others want to have him work to make up for his actions. In the latter case, it would be advisable to regard it a probationary period, with an official end date and conditions which he must not violate. However, we can determine those terms after we vote."

Kusanagi let out a breath. "I'll get the ballot box."

"I'll get some rocks," Fuuma said, grinning. "Black for execution, white for probation?"

Lantis nodded, and Fuuma and Kusanagi split off from the group to get supplies. As they went, Fai noticed Maddy tugging on a strand of hair, her shoulders tense. It hadn't surprised him to hear her defend the automaton. Like him, she had a knack for engineering, and it was difficult to study anything in depth without developing a respect for it. Although her aptitude for technology _did_ raise some questions about what she'd been doing before they'd found her. _A mystery for another day, perhaps, _Fai thought as Kusanagi and Fuuma returned with their supplies.

"Does anyone have anything else to say before we go on?" Lantis asked. When no one spoke up, he went on. "Then it's time to vote."

* * *

><p>Syaoran had never experienced fear to such an intense degree, and even though the panic took up the majority of his emotional network, a part of him was intrigued by the intensity of it. Fear, he discovered, was an overpowering emotion. It burned through his circuits like a power surge, igniting a discordant array of other sensations. Though his learning software would help him adopt the mannerisms of the humans around him, he, like all Clockwork Automatons, was programmed to mimic humans at a biological level, which meant that the mounting anxiety quickened his artificial heart. The organ was nothing more than a circuit board meant to simulate the sensation of a beating heart, but he felt it nonetheless, like a drumbeat in his chest. He was even perspiring slightly. Fascinating.<p>

"You doing okay?" Kurogane asked. The man hadn't left his side since the trial had ended.

"I am functioning optimally."

"Yeah, but are you _okay_?"

Syaoran paused, considering all the various implications of the question. As he did, it became clear that Kurogane wasn't concerned about his continued functioning, but about his emotional state. _He must have very advanced empathy software. _"I'm . . . afraid," he said, the word sounding strange to his ears. He couldn't recall ever being afraid until today. The only time he'd felt such strong emotions had been after applying an emotion-patch to his skin, and even then, he'd had to be sparing with his selections. Many days, he'd longed to make use of one of his valuable Joy patches to break up the tedium of working in the facility, but they had been too valuable to waste, and the rush made him . . . unproductive.

But even the emotion-patches had only provided an echo of what he was beginning to feel. He remembered the burst of authentic joy, however short-lived, when Kurogane had come to the facility, and it had made the synthetic compounds in the Joy patches seem ineffective in comparison. And though he had, for obvious reasons, never worn a Fear patch, he imagined that the discrepancy between true fear and its manufactured cousin was as vast as the one between real joy and a Joy patch.

"I've never been so afraid in my life," he said. Only a quarter of a second had passed since Kurogane's question. "But even so, I'm willing to go through with my punishment, whatever it turns out to be."

Kurogane said nothing, and Syaoran couldn't decipher the look on his face. Experiencing emotion was straightforward enough—a mix of chemicals pumping through his body, activating panels of circuits which made him aware of his own feelings—but determining what others were feeling based on their body language and tone? _That _was out of his realm of experience, and despite his vast database, he could only identify the most obvious social cues.

A few minutes later, his sensors picked up on several pairs of approaching footfalls. He perked up, his fear taking on a new dimension: anxiety.

"Well?" Kurogane asked, standing up.

"They've decided to count the votes in front of everyone," said the woman. Syaoran recognized Souma's voice—he'd been blindfolded when Kurogane had spoken to her before the trial, but he'd still been able to hear. Seeing her now, he saw that she had coppery skin and short dark hair, and she wore several layers of black clothing. Based on the information in his databases, she'd have been considered rather pretty, particularly in her facial structure, at least according to the standard of beauty at the time of the Departure.

Kurogane unlatched the door to his cage. "Come on out. You'll want to be there for the verdict."

No longer blindfolded, he easily extricated himself from the cage and stood. His arms were still tied behind his back, and another rope bound his legs so that he was forced to shuffle rather than walk normally, but though he'd have preferred not to be restrained, he knew he had no choice.

_No, _he told himself. _There's always a choice. If I had acknowledged that and decided to question my orders, none of this would have happened. _

Kurogane guided him back to the flat stretch of rock where they'd given their testimonies. As soon as they drew near, Syaoran's heat sensors picked up on the mass of people standing near the edge of the platform where the jury had sat only a short time ago, all murmuring to one another. When they saw him approach, they fell silent.

"It's time," Souma said, stepping up to a ceramic pot that seemed more suited to growing plants than holding ballots. "A black rock is a vote for the automaton's execution. A white rock is a vote to put him on probation where he will be allowed to work to repay his debt to society. I will now count the votes." She removed the lid—which Syaoran thought had originally been the dish meant to catch excess water that seeped to the bottom of the pot—and reached inside. When she withdrew her hand, she held up the rock she'd chosen so everyone could see. It was black.

_You expected this, _he reminded himself, surprised at the anxiety buzzing through his emotional network. _It's unlikely any of them want you alive. _

Souma reached into the pot again, pulling out another rock, also black. Two votes for execution. Beside him, Kurogane stirred uneasily.

And then something unexpected happened: Souma drew forth a white rock.

The crowd, silent throughout the first two votes, muttered in displeasure. Clearly they had expected a unanimous decision. How was it that he had managed to convince someone on the jury to spare him? Who had thought he was worth keeping alive?

"Quiet down," Kurogane growled. "This isn't some sideshow act."

When the last murmurs faded away, Souma withdrew another rock. White, again. Syaoran's eyebrows furrowed. _Who . . . ? _

The next rock was white as well, its reveal prompting another ripple of disbelief from the crowd. Three white, two black. Looking faintly surprised, Souma grabbed another rock and held it up. Black. _One vote left, _Syaoran thought, trying to squash the hope working its way through his circuits. He had been unbelievably fortunate to receive as many votes for lenience as he had, but he couldn't allow himself to believe he might be spared. _It is enough that I've earned this much support, _he thought. _It's more than I could have hoped for. _

Souma glanced at him, her expression uncertain, as if she couldn't believe it either. Then, taking a deep breath, she reached for the final stone.


	9. The Verdict

Chapter Nine

Souma held up the last rock. It was white.

For a moment, everyone in camp seemed to hold their breath, eyes fixed on the stone as if they couldn't comprehend its meaning. Three votes for execution, four for lenience. _I can't fucking believe it, _Kurogane thought. He hadn't dared hope for this outcome, hadn't thought the rest of the group could be merciful after everything they'd been through. His eyes snapped to the jury members, resting on Fai, who was beaming.

"This can't be right!" someone shouted from the back of the audience. Before Kurogane could identify the speaker, others chimed in.

"I'm calling a mistrial."

"No way he's innocent."

"It's _his _fault we lost Shougo!"

"And what about Emeraude and Suzuran? They're gone, too."

"Can't believe anyone would let that _thing _live."

Kurogane glanced at Kamui, who met his eyes. "Get the automaton out of here. I'll stay so we can determine what his probation will entail."

He turned back to the kid, grabbing his upper arm. For once, Kurogane could read his expression easily: shock. "Let's go before this gets ugly."

The boy allowed Kurogane to lead him away, his steps coordinated despite the utter surprise on his face. When they were away from the crowd, Kurogane turned to him and rested a hand on each of his shoulders. "Everything's fine," he said, not really believing it. "But you're going to want to stay out of the way for a while. All right?"

"I understand. I—" He paused, eyes flickering as his processors worked through whatever he was about to say. "The jury voted for lenience." The way he said it made it sound like a question.

"Yeah, they did, and the other people in camp aren't happy about it, which is why you're going to stay put while I handle this." He guided the kid toward the cage he'd occupied while awaiting his sentence. Syaoran entered without resistance, head down, kneeling on the floor with his hands folded in his lap. Kurogane closed and locked the door behind him, then glanced back toward the middle of camp. He could hear people shouting and arguing. Even with the more sensible members of the group trying to calm the situation, he'd be needed to keep things under control. In the meantime, he'd just have to hope nobody thought to harass the kid while he was caged and unable to escape.

* * *

><p>Fai stood amidst a maelstrom of accusations, struggling to keep a vapid smile plastered on his face. "Now, now, it's a conditional probation," he said, waving a hand as if the outcome of the trial was of no great concern. "I intend to check his programming for any indications he may be dangerous."<p>

"Oh, fuck his programming," said Kentaro. Ironically, his use of the swearword made him sound _less _serious than he might otherwise. "He's dangerous. He built those rogue robots!"

"He didn't know what he was doing," Madiha snapped, stalking up to Kentaro with her fists balled at her sides. For a girl more suited to research and engineering, she had a fiery streak.

"Oh, _sure_, the new girl _would _take his side," sneered Ryon, stalking up to Madiha and jabbing a finger in her direction. "Bet you sympathized with the robots during the war."

For just a second, confusion twinkled in Maddy's eyes. Then her jaw hardened. "And I bet _you _sympathize with people who tear the wings off flies."

Red suffused Ryon's cheeks. "You little bitch." He stalked forward, his chubby hand snaking out to grab Maddy's arm.

Without a conscious thought, Fai interposed himself between them, snatching Ryon's wrist and twisting. As the ligaments strained, the pudgy boy let out a squeal. Shock rippled across the crowd. Every day, they saw Fai tinkering with machines made of scrap and assumed his skills were purely intellectual. They compared his dextrous fingers with their own callused palms and believed them too soft for violence. They returned his bland, colorless smiles, thinking him a simpleton whose only skills revolved around mechanical pursuits.

They were wrong.

"I'd rather thought you'd have left the name-calling behind when the world ended," he said, his voice as bright and cheerful as ever. He twisted Ryon's wrist another few degrees—it didn't occur to the boy to punch with his other hand—and Ryon gave another pained sound, knees wobbling. "In fact, I do believe you owe Maddy-chan an apology. Unless, of course, you think your childishness is justified." He twisted a little more, until tears streamed down Ryon's face. The crowd had gone utterly silent.

"I'm sorry!" Ryon wailed. "I'm _sorry_, okay, let me go!"

Still smiling, Fai let go of the boy's arm. He staggered back, clutching his wrist as if he thought it was broken. "Now that that's settled," Fai said lightly, "let's try to act like adults, shall we?"

Sullen murmurs and awkward shuffling followed his suggestion, subsiding only when Kyle stepped forward. "I think I speak for most of us when I say the verdict didn't go as we'd expected."

"Nonetheless, the majority voted to put the automaton on probation," said Lantis. "It is our duty as citizens of this camp to uphold those laws which we set for ourselves."

"So it's settled, then." Fai nodded. "I'll run a few tests to eliminate any possibility that the automaton means us harm while the rest of the jury confers with Kamui and Kurogane about how to handle his probation. Right, Kuro-chan?" he said as Kurogane strode over to the group.

The man paused, looking over everyone with surprise, then nodded. "Right. Yeah." He cleared his throat. "The rest of you should get back to work. We've already wasted too much daylight."

With a number of groans and complaints, the group dispersed, most of them heading back to the fields or the livestock pens. Fai had worked shifts in both areas—everyone did, even if it wasn't their primary job—and found himself quite glad he now had a good reason to fill his day with something else. "I'm going to need to run some scans to make sure he's not dangerous. Just for everyone's peace of mind," he added when Kurogane bristled.

"I'd like to be there for that, too," Maddy said, raising her hand. "If I'm going to be the backup engineer, I'll need the practice."

"Yeah, fine, okay. Back to the lab, then. I'll go get the kid."

_Already he thinks of the automaton as a human, _Fai thought, his smile becoming just a little more real at the edges. Kurogane acted cold and ruthless, but he was a better man than most. A better man than Fai would ever be.

He started for his lab—really nothing more than a big tent with a tarp to keep off the rain and a solar panel affixed beside it. Maddy walked at his side, glancing at him every few steps. When they were out of earshot of anyone else, she spoke. "You didn't have to . . . Uh, I mean . . . Thanks." Her nose wrinkled. "For standing up to Ryon."

"It seemed like the thing to do," he said, holding the tent flap open for her. Maddy ducked inside, twisting the dial on the lamp by the desk. With the energy from the solar panel, it glowed to life, brightening the dim interior.

A computer sat on the desk. He'd salvaged it early on from one of the Preservation Act warehouses, though he'd needed to take scraps from a number of other machines in order to get it functioning again. No matter how hard humankind tried to leave their mark on the world, the simple fact was that nature inevitably found a way to destroy it. The few things that had survived were precious beyond measure.

"Hey," Maddy said. The timid note in her voice made him glance up. "I was just thinking . . . what would you do, if you could go back? To the old world, I mean. Before the end."

_A thousand things, _he thought, startled by the hollow ache in his chest. _I would save more people. I would make sure the robot wars never happened. I would prove to everyone that complex AIs are only dangerous if you teach them to be. I . . . _

_ I wouldn't have let my brother die. _

He gave Madiha a small, pained smile. "I don't know," he lied, hitting the power button on his computer. "Why do you ask?"

She opened her mouth, snapped it shut, and looked away. "I've been thinking that if I could go back to the days before this group found me . . . I just . . . I would have tried to be better, you know? I'd have made sure the people I cared about knew how I felt about them." She shifted her weight, her cheeks taking on a pink tinge. "I, um—"

The tent flap billowed open suddenly as Kurogane entered, the automaton in tow. Maddy stiffened, then scowled at the floor as Fai rose to greet them. "I've been looking forward to getting a chance to examine you," he said to the automaton, extending a hand. The robot regarded it for a moment, then reached out to shake it. _Good, firm grip, not too tight, _Fai's mind supplied._ Excellent fine muscle control. Reluctant to initiate contact and hesitant to accept it._ His smile dimmed slightly. _He may have spent the past three centuries alone, but his understanding of human interaction should still be more advanced. __He must have been created right before the Departure._"My name is Fai D. Fluorite, but you can call me Fai. And this is Madiha . . ." He trailed off awkwardly, realizing with some surprise that after four months, she'd never mentioned her last name.

"Just Maddy," she said, shaking the automaton's hand. "And your name is?"

A slight pause. "My former coworkers used to call me Syaoran."

Kurogane watched the exchange, eyebrows furrowing. After a moment, Fai turned to him. "This will take a while. You may as well go talk to Kamui. I'm sure you'll want to discuss who's going to replace Shougo in the triumvirate."

"Sure." Kurogane glanced at the automaton. "You going to be okay, kid?"

Syaoran hesitated, his eyes darting to Fai's face. He looked down. "I am willing to undergo whatever procedures are necessary to facilitate peaceable relations with the people of this camp."

_Speech patterns will need work as well, _Fai thought, clearing his throat. "Right then. Let's get you hooked up to the computer."


	10. Those Left Behind

Chapter Ten

The automaton sat completely still, a thick bundle of wires dangling from the panel at the back of his head. "To begin with, I'm going to do a preliminary scan of your memory," Fai explained, accessing one of his computer's analysis programs. As clunky as the machine had been when he'd finally gotten it into working condition, it had nonetheless contained some useful software. Though not specifically designed to handle Clockwork Automatons, it had programs which would allow him to access most of Syaoran's databases.

The automaton said nothing, though the slight tension of his shoulders belied his anxiety. _It seems his emotional network has survived well enough, _Fai thought, running the analysis. Maddy leaned closer, eyes fixed on the screen as the program isolated points of interest, including software updates—mostly from before the Departure—notable events which Syaoran had archived, and spikes in emotion beyond the usual baselines. Fai watched the results pile up and considered which algorithms were likely to yield the information he needed to determine whether Syaoran was a threat or not.

"You really _did _spend three hundred years in that facility, huh?" Maddy said, glancing away from the monitor to look at the automaton.

"I had no reason to leave. I thought I was doing what needed to be done for the good of the world."

"It _is _a very stable pattern," Fai murmured to himself. "There are a few disturbances, but those are minor compared to the recent spikes in your emotional network." _Hardly unexpected, considering what a shock it must have been to encounter a group of our size after so long alone. _"I'll have to compare those to your personal logs, but of more immediate interest . . ." He typed in a short sequence, which reduced the list to software updates only, though the other files continued to pile up in the background. "You gave yourself several software updates over the years."

"Is that significant?"

"Possibly. Maddy, would you say that it is unusual for an automaton of Syaoran's caliber to manipulate their own programming?"

She seemed startled by his question, requiring several false starts before answering. "It, well . . . Yeah, it's unusual, but it's not unreasonable that a Clockwork Automaton would be equipped to do so. Most processes that other automatons would receive through software updates would actually be handled by the learning programs in a Clockwork Automaton, but there would be some things that would require actual coding to fix."

"Such as?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

Maddy hesitated, eyes flickering to Syaoran before she squared her shoulders and answered. "Removing the prohibitions against violence would be the greatest concern, but there are others. For instance, personality modding might require a software update. Without it, a personality change would require months of conscious alteration of behavior, if not years. It's like . . . It's like when an addict decides to quit using. Sure, it can be done, but it requires a lot of willpower and, most of the time, a complete restructuring of your daily life. You have to cut ties with anyone who uses drugs, stay away from places where you might be tempted, take up some new hobbies to fill the void. For someone who could rewrite their personality, a software update would be much easier."

It was an apt metaphor, Fai decided, although he doubted this automaton had anything resembling a drug problem. Automatons did not develop addictions in the same way humans did, as the way their bodies were structured eliminated chemical dependency as a factor. There was still a psychological angle, of course, but without the influence of peers, media, or other contributing factors, the possibility of Syaoran being an addict was unlikely. In any case, he wasn't looking for an addiction—he was looking for violent tendencies.

He clicked through the later software updates to see what had been modified. Forty-eight years after the Departure, Syaoran had received his last software update from the company which had created him—a mass update from light-years away, sent to all surviving Clockwork Automatons. From the looks of it, the update was meant to add a few additional safeguards and protocols to help the automatons cope with their long lifespans. After that, there were six minor updates which listed Syaoran himself as the programmer, the latest of which had occurred almost exactly one year ago. In fact, that update had taken place only a few days after . . .

Fai paused, studying the screen more closely. "That can't be right."

Syaoran began to turn his head, then stopped abruptly when the movement threatened to pull the wires out of his control panel. It was Maddy, however, who spoke first. "What is it?"

"Give me a moment." He pushed away from the computer, riffling through a sheaf of silicon pages upon which he'd handwritten most of the notes he'd made since he'd woken up from cryo-sleep. He retrieved the very first of his logs—the booklet which was really more a journal now than a collection of useful notes. The first entry detailed the day he'd emerged from his long slumber and released the rest of the survivors from their own cryo-pods. After that, there were several entries detailing the day-to-day life of the camp as they organized themselves and began scavenging for what they needed to survive.

After another minute of perusal, he came to the entry he was looking for—a page-long journal he'd written the day they'd first encountered the waste management drones. They had not been hostile then, and as Fai skimmed the entry, he remembered his wonder at finding functional automatons of any variety so long after the Departure. That discovery had presented two possibilities. The first: that the rest of humanity had returned to Earth, as promised prior to the Departure. The second: that there were still fully operational automatons capable of manufacturing the drones they had encountered. Fai had rushed back to the base camp to relay the news, hoping that his discovery would allow them an opportunity to reconnect with a piece of their old lives. That hope had made it all the more crushing when, upon their return a handful of days later, they had found themselves under fire from the very robots they had been so overjoyed to discover.

Fai looked at the date of the entry, then looked at the date of Syaoran's latest software update. The two were the same.

"You have been silent for some time," Syaoran said. "Do you have a question with which I may assist you?"

Fai forced his voice to remain carefree, despite the panic flailing in his stomach. "No, just thinking. Madiha, would you go and see if you can find that old projector we dug up a few months back?"

"Why?"

_So that you won't be within shooting range if this goes badly. _"It might be useful for displaying any conclusions we make for the rest of the camp. A visual aid will be more compelling than our word alone, even if both are equally valid."

Maddy hesitated, and he could almost hear her thinking that it would be easier to have everyone simply look at the screen, rather than devoting time to syncing the projector with their systems and creating a presentation. But, after an uneasy moment, she nodded. "Sure. Be back in a few."

He watched her walk out of the tent, then counted to ten to ensure she wouldn't be within earshot. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he turned to Syaoran. "Relying solely upon your conscious memory, without accessing any of your other databases, can you tell me when your last software update occurred?"

"I had to update myself fifty-two years, three months, and twenty-one days ago in order to sync myself with the facility's databases, which I had updated after water damage ruined some equipment."

"You haven't made any other alterations to yourself since then?"

"No."

"Have you received any updates or data packages from anywhere else in that time-frame?"

"No. The last was a few decades after the Departure, when the humans sent a mass data-dump to all surviving Clockwork Automatons." He paused, his features settling into a look of dull confusion. "I am afraid my intuitive abilities have waned since the Departure. Your heart rate and hormone levels indicate that you are afraid, but I do not understand why."

Fai took a breath, looking at the systems analysis to determine the truth of the automaton's words. As far as the computer could tell, Syaoran believed his statements. Yet that was not the story told by the other scans Fai had run, and the inconsistency raised an alarming question:

If Syaoran had not altered his own programming, who had?

The tent flap burst open, and Fai flinched, thinking that Maddy had returned already with the projector, but when he looked up, he found Kurogane standing in the entryway. "Oh, hell," he said, seeing Fai's expression. "What is it?"

_Calm. Steady. This doesn't have to mean what you think it means. _He cleared his throat, but could not quite to sound cheerful. "Well, Kuro-sama, it appears our automaton has been remotely hacked."

The man's dark eyebrows slanted. "Hacked? By who? We've been looking for months—there's no one within a hundred miles of our camp, and definitely no one with that kind of technology. Who could be—" He broke off as the answer occurred to him, his face paling even as his hands clenched into fists. "Tell me this isn't what it sounds like."

"I wish I could," Fai said, his own voice sounding distant to his ears. "Unfortunately, it appears we may not have this world to ourselves for much longer."

Syaoran's eyes darted from Fai to Kurogane and back again. "Am I correct in understanding this means the Return of humanity is imminent?"

"Shit," Kurogane growled, half-raising his fist before remembering that, with the exception of the canvas from which the tent was made, every piece of equipment within punching range was irreplaceable. With obvious effort, he relaxed his fist, turning to Fai. "Find out what exactly what they changed when they hacked him. I need to talk to Kamui." He stalked out of the tent before Fai could think of an appropriate quip. Which, given Kurogane's state of mind, was probably better for both of them.

"I do not understand," Syaoran said, the pitch of his voice fluctuating in puzzlement. "If the Return is imminent, it means the planet has sufficiently recovered to become a viable human habitat once again. It means that the descendants of those who left during the Departure will soon return to share their knowledge and resources with yourselves and any other survivors."

Fai lifted his head, saw the obviously baffled look on the automaton's face. In contrast to the occasional difficulties showing emotion, he now seemed to be overemphasizing them, to the point where his expression appeared a caricature of real confusion. _How deteriorated must those systems be, after three centuries without anyone to talk to? Any human would have gone insane after a few years of isolation. _Fai had taken an introductory course on psychology before settling on his major in college, and he knew that a person's social skills began to degrade significantly after only a few weeks without human contact. An automaton would have safeguards against that, but even so, it was a miracle Syaoran could function in any capacity around people—remarkable that he could emote at all.

It was no surprise, then, that he could not understand the obvious fault in his logic. Fai looked at his feet. "I am afraid you have an unrealistically optimistic perspective on the goodness of humanity."

"Humans are social creatures," Syaoran said. "Their ability to cooperate and coexist with one another allowed them to survive despite being physically inferior to the species with which they competed for survival."

"You don't understand." Fai returned his attention to the monitor, opening the file on Syaoran's latest "software update." A window popped up displaying several folders, each packed with hundreds of files. It took only a cursory glance to confirm that this was far from an amateur hacking job. "It's true that most people, given the choice, will work for the benefit of their society. But there's no such thing as a society where everyone is treated equally. There will always be a lower class. There will always be criminals. There will always be people left behind. Even the healthiest society cannot be perfect."

Thinking, he examined several files more closely. Definitely a professional job. "Famine, sickness, lack of resources . . . Most people believed that these were relics of an age before modern scientific understanding. We had cultivated the land, brought the very forces of nature under our control. We could build structures which touched the sky. We could rewrite our own genetics to make ourselves smarter, or stronger, or more attractive. We could even create machines which matched our intelligence, while also instilling in them a sense of devotion, even love, for their creators."

"I wish I had been able to see more of the old world," Syaoran said quietly. "It sounds amazing."

"It was." Fai closed his eyes, a hundred regrets threatening to drown him. "And that was exactly the problem. How easy would it be to look at everything we had accomplished and reach a little too far? To take that last step and bring about our own destruction? We had conquered nature in a hundred different ways, used our superior intelligence to create marvels which even our most recent ancestors would have deemed wondrous. Humanity had always been arrogant, but as society progressed, we became dangerously so, and when the world we had abused and manipulated so thoroughly began to fight back, we told ourselves that we could tame it, just as we had countless times before. And when we failed to tame it, we chose to abandon it."

"Hence the Departure," Syaoran said, nodding slightly in understanding. "But if the Return is to occur soon, that means the planet has once again been deemed healthy enough to support human civilization. This world can be reclaimed and cultivated once more."

"Yes," Fai agreed, folding his hands in his lap.

"Then why do my sensors indicate you are experiencing distress?"

"Because we're the ones humanity left behind."


End file.
